¶ Installation Challenges With Space Pack Unit
Did you know that when somebody dials 911 , it's already it's recording while it's ringing ? Did you know that ?
Right , I did .
I didn't know that until this week .
Yeah , I remember that was it's our local 911 has had . I'm trying to remember where . Who told me that Might have been Ben , I don't know . Anyway , somebody , somebody I know that works in the police department had mentioned that .
I didn't know that and I heard it on a podcast , or no , heather told me , because she does all those crazy podcasts . Anyway , everybody , welcome to the Make Trades Great Again podcast . This is Eric and that is Andy , and we usually start the podcast out talking about something totally unrelated to the topic , and that was it .
When you call 911 , it's already recording before they pick up .
I thought that was cool . Do you know ? You don't even have to answer them .
What do ?
you mean , like if you bump it , you know , like hit dial 911 , you don't even have to .
Now , anyway , if you're calling from a cell phone , you don't have to answer or even say anything , and then they will be able to identify your location from your cell service and basically just listen to one side of what's going on and figure out what's trying to determine what they need to do .
You know how they , you know how they figured , you know how GPS works .
right , yeah , Well do you know , like triangulation .
Yeah , yeah , between government drones , no birds . Why do you think it's so accurate ? How many you go outside , how many birds you see right now that's why I've eliminated all of the pigeons here . Yeah , yeah , you ever see a baby pigeon ? Nope , nope , never seen one . It's because there aren't such a thing . Anyway , they don't exist . They don't exist .
They're government drones when they're on the power line , that's when they're recharging , right , that makes sense . I don't know why people question this . So our topic today , though , is fascinating too . I think you had a job .
I saw you post a video the other day on Instagram , and it was interesting , and I got almost kind of nervous at the very beginning of your video , because they're like we had a space pack already like partially installed in this system , this cooling for this cooling system . We had this whole piece of equipment ready to go . That's what we're going to do .
And then you're like but I ripped it out and I'm like oh no , what is he going to start bashing his space pack all of a sudden , like what ? And so I had to watch it , and I was surprised to hear you say you were going to go one way with a piece of equipment for this cooling system , and it sounded to me like you got cold feet in a way .
That was how you presented it . So I'm going to let you describe what the heck is I'm even talking about because you can do a better job , obviously , than I can .
Yeah , so this is a customer that I've worked on this house I don't know a better part of 15 years . I mean prior to me owning a business I worked with for these people . Very nice house , very nice , All concrete construction . So concrete exterior walls , eight inch thick concrete walls with framed walls inside of that ultra efficient .
It's like four inch slab on grade with pan deck , so it's all on red iron in a four foot crawl space . Spray foam , the entire bottom like 60 , I think it's like 6,300 square feet . So the entire bottom of the pan deck is all . It's got four inches of spray foam on it . You think that ?
by the time they put a crawl space in wind , they just have a slab on grade . I don't know .
I'm not sure . So anyway we were going to put this space pack unit in there , the space pack solstice . It was a five ton air source heat pump , air to water heat pump , and I was kind of excited for it because in the house we have a Visman CU3A that we put in last year .
We have seven zones of radiant , so all that pan deck concrete is radiant , floor slab heat , including the garage and whatnot . And then they have four air handlers and the four air handlers are kind of zoned for the different parts of the house . But they've never had that air conditioning hooked up and part of it was .
Is that the installing contractor everybody's got different stories on what they thought happened there . But the units were too big , they were just they were too big .
And the homeowner has had to complain for years that when the backup or the second stage of heat comes on , if they have a problem , second stage of heat is a hot water coil that energizes the fan on these air handlers and they're just super noisy .
And I'd say their hand laughs themselves , yeah .
And last winter I was there and I'm like , okay , we're doing , you know , going through the tweaking on this CU3A and the new system , and we fired one up and I was like , holy cow , dude , that thing is like sounds like a jet engine in the house .
Yeah , well , no , just the air , the volat air velocity , yeah , just , I mean like , blow the , blow the curtains off the wall , like back away from there . All these big , uh , ultra modern linear diffusers , so they're like eight foot long diffusers on the floor , yeah . And it's just anyway poorly designed , sure .
And so I thought , well , we're going to , let's do this . I went , I've been looking at this project for two years , like kind of trying to come up with a , with a concept and idea .
We've , you know , back and forth , the homeowner is a surgeon , very , very intelligent man , and we just hadn't come up with a good plan that we were both on board with and he had finally says , hey , you know what , you know what we need to , we need to pull the trigger on this . And I didn't , I hadn't made it a priority .
It just it just was one of those jobs that was like you know one of these days , we'll figure out what they want to do . And have an air conditioning for 18 years , I mean , it's not like it's some sort of imminent .
You got to have it now , and so we I settled on this air to water heat pump and I thought , well , I'm just going to run chilled water through those hot water coils and then we'll go in and we'll do some air balancing and we'll get the get the air handlers turned down and probably be fine , you know , but this is going to be a cool way to do it .
And you know , maybe we'll , maybe I'll screw around with trying to do radiant slab cooling , you know , cause it's just big math , high mass slab . If we could get the slab down to 68 degrees or something like that , it would be , it would be golden , It'd be , it'd be awesome .
And I , he and I talked and I said yep , no , this is good , I'm good with this .
Let's do it . And that's where you went with the space back . That's how you arrived there , yep .
That's how we arrived there .
Is that a monoblock system ? How does that work so ?
the reason I went with the space pack is it is the only one that I have found so far , that's air water that has no water outside , and the compressor is on the outside in the outside unit because I've wanted the noise outside . Yeah , I looked at a couple of others .
I think the Nordic is another one that's a refrigerant piped between the indoor and the outdoor but the compressor's on the in the inside unit and I don't quite understand why they would put the compressor inside . I mean , it doesn't make any sense to me but obviously I'm not an engineer , but there's got to be some reason they did .
But I have not quite identified what that is , so we didn't go that route . There was a couple others that I kind of looked at Himmend-Hodd space pack when I was talking to the manufacturer's rep . You know it seemed like it was good to go and I underestimated how far it was from where the outdoor unit was going to be to the mechanical room . Wow .
And Like how much under acid ? Like were you close or was it like , oh , this is never going to work , like six feet , oh Right .
And so .
I found that space pack on the refrigeration lines 35 .
The mindset 35 feet , that's not very far .
That's not very far . And I'm not going to say in my defense , because I wholeheartedly own this debacle- if you want to go with that , well , because you had the unit on the ground right . You had it sitting there outdoor , oh yeah .
The outdoor unit was piped . I had Miles up there for a day . He got the outdoor unit piped .
He excavated the existing line sets where they exited underground and we cut off one of those line sets and rerouted through that same sleeve back into the house across this I don't know what you call it like a common space at the bottom of the stairs , between a wine cellar and the mechanical room .
Oh yeah , of course , Wine cellar .
All this exposed piping and ductwork in the ceiling , so it wasn't that big a deal . We just put it right back on the trapeze hangers that were there and ran it in the mechanical room and in my mind I was like , oh , this space across here is like 18 or 12 feet , right it's not that big . It's 12 feet from the outside wall to the mechanical room .
That gives us plenty of line set . We're going to have 10 feet outside . Yeah , yeah , we'll have 12 inside . We'll be able to get over and down the wall and we'll be there and Miles calls me like into the day towards the end of the day and he goes , okay , well . I got . You know , robin , I Rob came up and gave me a hand .
We got this line set pulled in and it sticks . It extends into the mechanical room like three feet and I'm like what , yeah ?
all the way .
Yeah , I'm like six in the mechanical room , like three feet , and I'm like , okay , so you have some that you cut off . No , that's , that's it Like it's going to extend into the mechanical room , like three feet , and I'm like , oh , that's not good , you know . Because now I'm thinking like , well , how do we move the unit closer to the house ?
And the big deal is , is that Closer ?
to where it enters the house .
Yeah , how do we like suck up the 10 feet outside and put it like six and put four more feet in the house ? You know like , you know you play that , you know the numbers game , you know start sliding things around and he goes . Well , I've got the unit outside , like just around the corner , from the end of the gallery , the hallway .
They've got this this long hallway that's got art in it , and you look out the end windows and there's floor to ceiling glass . To the right hand side of this is where this space pack was sitting . And I'm like when I told Miles , I'm like , well , when you set this thing up , I need you to come back inside and make sure that you can't see it .
Yeah , right , like you can't , you cannot be able to see it . Yeah , okay , yeah , and in his defense , he didn't do anything wrong on it , but he set it up so that you couldn't see the unit . But you could see the line set where it came out of the unit and went in the ground .
Okay , and that sounds like a big deal , or it doesn't sound like it's that big a deal , right ?
Well , however , we had specific instructions .
Right .
Yeah , Because you said I don't want to see the unit . So he set that up and then he ran the line set and then everything had to be moved to another six inches or something .
Right .
Foot and so yeah .
And so it was like , okay , well , how do we , how do we do this ? And I I , you know it was one of those deals where I was like , well , I'm going to , I'm going to think on this over the weekend and I'm going to , I'm going to think long and hard , and so that was like on a Thursday .
So I think I called the called space back on Friday , talked with a rep again and I'm like , okay , how much can I add to this before I get myself into trouble ? Yeah , and he goes . Well , what do you mean ? I'm like I need to add like seven or eight feet , maybe 10 . And he's like , don't do it . I'm like , really , come on , there's no way .
Wow , five feet , wow , don't do it . He's like it'll void the warranty , he goes . I've seen him do it before he goes .
You know what , if , if he goes , if we come out and we have to do a factory service call because something doesn't work right on it , and we measure up and it's you know , 41 feet , he goes , that's on you and we're not , and they won't play . And I was like , okay , all right , that's not cool . You know now what you know kind of thinking .
I'm going to put this indoor unit upstairs or in the , basically at the ceiling level of like 12 feet off the ground .
Oh my God , that's where it's going to hook up and I'm like this is stupid , and so you have to go back out there in the meantime , after you told them , so you could see , put your own eyes on it . I suppose that's kind of like the next step , because you weren't there .
Yeah , yeah .
¶ Discussing Challenges With Installation Plan
And basically what had happened is so , in between the time that that Miles had , he basically said hey , you know this . And I was thinking , and making phone calls , the homeowner over the weekend he sends me an email and he says , hey , we need to talk . Call me , yeah . And so I did .
And I called him and he's like , yeah , yeah , it's not going to go there . And I was like , okay , that's like I get that . I said what do you got ? And so I went up there on Saturday and he was out of town . He works out of town . So I met with met with his wife and we looked and she goes yeah , this is , this is what we can see .
And I looked , I , as soon as I walked in the front door , he looked down the hall down there and I'm like , yeah , nope , that's not going to fly .
You know , yeah , Well , that you already kind of knew that . But yeah , unfortunately , unfortunate they had to tell you which . If you would have said , hey , we're trying to figure something out and , by the way , sounds like it got put in the wrong spot and we need to move it .
It's unfortunate you didn't get to give that , because if you would have said that , I bet the homeowner would be like oh yeah , that ain't going to work and just would have not had to call you or anything like that , exactly , exactly . That kind of stuff is the stressful part to me is stressful because I I hate having to have that conversation .
When it comes from them , I'd rather tell . I'd rather tell them the bad news .
I'd be like yeah , I don't like this , I don't like the way this looks . I'm going to move in . Yeah , before they say you need to move that because it would be there . Yeah .
Yeah , and you can apply that to so many scenarios . Oh my gosh . Usually I've said it so many times and like , hey , by the way , I'm not happy with this , or whatever . Yeah , yeah , it's way better .
So yeah .
So then , so the week you go through , the weekend you've decided you're going to , you're going to change over the weekends . Well , like you know what , I'm just going to go what . You were on the computer the whole weekend looking for the right piece of equipment .
Oh yeah , oh yeah . No , I was looking at Google maps , I'm looking at their house from an aerial view and I'm like , okay , well , maybe I could do this . There's a chase way that goes up next to the venting from the roof down through the main floor of the house into this like concrete I don't know what . You even call it chase basically concrete chase .
It's like three feet deep and like six feet offset from the mechanical room . Well , I think I could get from the roof down through that . We'll get a roofing contractor to come in and put a new roof flashing on it . It's a TPO membrane roof . I'm like we'll just put a new roof flashing on it and we'll go down from the roof .
We'll put the outdoor unit on the roof . Yeah , I'm like , yeah , that'll work , That'll work . And I'm thinking I'm like , okay , measure it . And I'm like , man , it's really close .
Oh , you're trying to make the 35 feet work . Yeah , I got you , okay , okay .
So that was on Saturday . So I was on the roof on Saturday . While I was up there looking at it , I'm looking at the outside unit where , like climbing through the crawl space and I'm checking I spent a couple hours up there and sat .
Did you get to that part where you're like I think I got and you almost have that like I don't want to say you're relaxed , but you almost have like that little bit of joy like okay , confidence , maybe , that feeling of confidence like okay , we figure this out , and then you figure out you didn't . Do you know what I'm talking about ?
I totally do .
I hate that Cause , of course , while everybody hates it . I mean , I don't even know what to say that right .
But the idea that you just yep , yeah , you just figured it out . You're like oh , wait .
no , I didn't , I didn't figure it out .
Oh , that sucks .
Yeah , okay so it's Saturday . The roof option isn't going to work , then what ?
Yeah , and so I Try to remember what the deal is . I Called him , talked to him and I'm like , alright , here's the deal , I Hate this thing . And he's like , what do you mean ? I'm like , I just don't like it .
There's there's a couple of things I think we could work through it the fact that we're gonna work through this one , one option and we're gonna put the unit on the roof and then , to boot this thing , the , the roof or the outdoor unit , weighs like 435 pounds . Yeah it's big , yeah , it's like 50 , 58 inches tall . It's like a big 2 fan , 5 ton .
You know many split out the other units very heavy . Yep , very heavy and top heavy . And so I'm like I'm gonna put this up on his roof . And so I'm standing and before I left there , I go park , I go drive out of tortoise , out of his driveway , and I get up to the main road and I'm like , okay , I need to walk to the house .
And I walk to the house and I'm like there's no chance you like , you put this thing on the roof where you can't see it .
Yep .
Because the house is set underneath . You know the elevation wise . The house is probably 30 feet lower than the driveway where you entered and and you know it's a big , long , windy drive .
Yeah , like so . Yeah , I ain't gonna place .
Nope , nope , we're out , and so on the way back home I'm like we're done , pull the plug on that , we're done . I mean that that isn't going in . And I Was driving home and I was , I was pissed , you know , I was mad at my not .
I'm mad at myself , not at anybody else . Nobody else did anything wrong .
This solely sits on my shoulders and I'm sitting there going god dang it . How did I miss ?
that ? Do you think that this would have happened ? Like you knew , the length requirement for that line set I . I did , or did you not ? But it wasn't maybe top of .
I was like well , we got that by a mile .
Oh , that's right , because you had underestimated this . Okay , so is this really ? Because I mean we know what happens next .
You go to a different piece of equipment , but yeah , and so the details of that probably quickly would just be hey , you told the homeowner like I think we're gonna go something else they would , they were okay with that , like it moved pretty quickly , or what .
Yeah , I mean , basically I talked to him , talk to the homeowner , and I was like , hey , listen , here's the deal , there's a there's . There's a couple of things I really don't like about this . Now that it's sitting on site , now that it's boots on the ground , yeah , what ?
is the things you don't like , though I don't well , the control , the control strategy that we were going to have to employ to make this communicate and switch over between heating and cooling and not cause the the Boiler to fire up or not have both running .
You know , there was all this interlock that I was going to have to try and figure out so that we didn't call on first stage of heat for some reason In one zone and have forced air go cooling going in the other zone , you know . So there was just , there was a handful of things going on that that I didn't like .
Uh , the house already has some really funky wiring .
I thought this thing , I thought those face back units could , you could run a hydronic coil off that thing . You can , yeah , you totally can , but you weren't going to do that because you already had the boiler connected to it system , right , we were not going to utilize the heat pump .
They got natural gas , he's got some solar and he and I had the conversation where we're just like hey , you know this . Here's the thing . It's not low temp heating , it'll do like I think it's five , you know , at like five above it hits its rated capacity .
So he totally could have done some some geover , some space heat off of it and and I and not that we couldn't , but it was just like okay , now what level of control do we go in with ? Do we have three stages of heat now ?
Oh , I'm be meaning the meaning . This space packs stage three .
Well , that way . And the order for cooling , and then the , and then the boiler stage three on the fan coils .
What in the world is going ?
on what's the radiant floor .
No , I'm already . I already hate this , you know . So it's not a equipment problem , though .
No , no no , no , no , there's nothing wrong with the unit . Yeah , okay , so I think it .
Finally needs to be said , though , because it sounds to me like it's just a messed up system . It wasn't thought through the first time around . And now you're , you know , dozen , two dozen years later , whatever it is , that's the problem with these older systems , and you know like , and you had too many people Making crap up .
That's really what it comes down to . Oh , we can do this , we could do that . We could . Why ? Why ? Why as much as I want hydronic heat if I can't then pull it together with a different backup system or not backup , because you don't need a backup system , but uh , if I can't control it logically with another system all together , then what for ?
And it has nothing to do with hydronic heating either . It's I've seen it with other systems too , but usually when it's force air ducted with a central , you know split , you know Unitary cooling system , like it's not that big a deal . It's not , you know . And that could even be a heat pump . That's fine , you know .
But yeah and so and so that's . That was where my dilemma was that . And then I'm like okay , part of me was like , well , we have these 18 year old air handlers and we were gonna reuse those because they were in there right and the reason why we're reusing here's .
Here's my logic behind why we were reusing they were too big and only they were too big and loud and they only came on as backups heat source , so they have like Maybe a handful hours of runtime . One of them .
Oh yeah .
Right , because radiant floor does everything .
Problem is that the freaking blower is gonna go on it . Oh it's probably just some dumb , ridiculous , expensive blow you know .
Yep , so let's strike number three .
Okay , you know , all right . Yeah , so we're 20 plus minutes into this . Yeah , how do we move forward ? I , because I saw the video and , like I said , I got nervous because I thought you're gonna start bashing no , which is not something I would ever expect you to do , by the way .
Yeah , that's why it sounded like it .
Yeah , it's , it did . It sounded like you're gonna be like and we rip these things out and I'm like , oh crap . So you are not these things , but this thing . So you ripped out the outdoor unit because it just isn't . You can't make it work . I can't make it flexible enough for you .
I hear here's the deal . I could have made it work . I could have done it . It wouldn't have been without high risk In . Would it actually function correctly ?
like we you mean you'd be , you'd be making trips back and this thing isn't gonna . Yeah , it's not just a plug-and-play thing the the next 20 years .
I'm gonna be playing with this thing . That's . That was in the back of my mind as I was like , how many things have to be just exactly right for this to work ? Yeah , and they were , there were way too many . And I just said , okay , you know what we're done , we're not gonna do this , I don't like it , it's out of here .
And loaded it up on the trailer and Again , that was another one of those days , you know , a lot of a lot of attention , a lot of stress , and I was like you know what I'm just I , you know , I think I had the afternoon was open on my schedule , something somebody had canceled or something like
¶ Heat Pump and HVAC Installation Frustrations
that . And I went up and picked that unit up and I was like , oh , I got a pick and a shovel in my truck . I'm gonna dig like 50 feet or 40 feet of ditch and I'm just gonna wind myself back down , you know . And I dug , dug , ditch for three hours in the sunshine and you know I was like , okay , I got done .
I'm like , all right , I got a ditch dug , let's go to work , you know why ?
why were you doing that ? Because I was pissed ? No , why were you ? Well , because we have to move the mindset .
Well , I did . Yeah , I had to dig up the mindset that we had , but Ultimately the new unit couldn't go where the old one was at . That's part of the problem , and he wanted it . He goes . Well , if we're gonna do it , I want it over here .
And so it's different area .
Yeah , yeah , it's on the north side of the garage where the gas meter and the electric meter's at , and Well , oh , there you go , and that's where it's supposed to be yeah .
And so yeah , so there's like I don't know .
Is there 40 feet , 35 feet of line set outside the building now ?
Yeah , that's in the ditch .
So I was just like you know what , Whatever , I'll dig ditch , you know sometimes you get a good . I don't know what you call it , a thoughtless . Thoughtless is the word .
Mindless , mindless , say what it is yeah and say what ?
it is a good , mindless activity to just Think we think you're picking on anybody . Yep , get your , uh , get your head squared up , and , and so that's what it did . I dug yeah .
Well , I'm a professional , licensed and certified goon scoop operator . I I know what you mean when it sometimes you just got a dig , a ditch , um . So you went with the Mitsubishi unit .
Yep , is it a smart multi in there to five tons Smart multi . We've got four SVZ air handlers going in there . So we pulled out the old air handlers , we're leaving the existing hot water coil and that'll essentially be third stage , if it not that we're ever going to need it .
The heat pump will be basically first stage of heat and we're going to do basically an interlock to make the floor heat take over when it gets to the end of the water . What are these air ?
handlers , even heating if the whole place is radiant . I don't even understand that there's no reason for it .
We're going to the nice . The nice thing with it , now that we have we'll have we'll have actual true variable speed air handlers , is that we'll be able to do air a bunch of IQ stuff . We'll be able to do high end filtration . We're going to be able to do humidity control .
You know some of that kind of thing that we weren't really able to do before because they were so spanking noisy .
They'll probably use the thing on D-Hume just constantly and they probably won't even have to go into cooling mode .
No .
It's probably what it'll be Sounds like yeah , yeah , can I ? So let me get this off my chest . I hate that . I've been involved in these systems for 25 years . From way back when we were doing new construction , everybody's got to sit around and be like this is what we should do . This is what we should do .
Everybody's like making stuff up , shooting from the hip , not like they didn't know what they were doing , but they didn't . Nobody Everybody wants to sell their thing that they're good at , and nobody wants to stop and go . Well , it doesn't matter if I like it or not . This is the best thing for the job . You know what I'm saying .
So yeah , did you ever ? Have you ever come across any heat timer controls ?
Yes .
Yes , okay , that's what this ? House had in the beginning .
Yeah , of course it did . Why wouldn't it ? I mean why , maybe ? Maybe you could tell me next that there was pneumatic thermostats .
No , but it had a Flintfin Concept 21 boiler in it .
Oh , there you go , there you go . I'm actually surprised you didn't tell me it wasn't a copperfin .
You have a lot of those out there , we do have a lot of them .
No , I just get so fed up with it and I'm by no means an expert on all of this , but I get so fed up . 25 years into a house and people are still like , well , it's never been right .
And it's because of that , it's because they're making stuff up and nobody knew exactly or wanted to admit or got the right person involved and just put the right thing in . You know what I mean .
It's funny because you look at . So I was listening to Bill Cho podcast this morning when I was playing in the shop and I was like I was telling you this earlier and I don't remember what the episode exactly was , but they were talking about building things wrong and having to fix it . Yeah , you know why am I drawing a blank on his name ?
Jake or Steve or Matt . Matt's the host .
It would have been Matt ,
¶ Discussion on Building and Installation Challenges
I think it was .
Matt was telling the story of one of the first houses he built on his own , that he general contracted and the concrete guy came in and poured this goofy like mono slab and there was no insulation on the slab and they were doing these like crazy R35 walls or something on top of it and there was this dilemma like how are we going to insulate the slab ?
Like that doesn't , like we can't . Now you screwed this up . It wasn't supposed to be done that way and anyway they ended up raising the building , basically .
The thickness of the insulation ?
Yeah , Right and put joists under it or something . Oh , built a joist system suspended above the concrete slab so that they could insulate that , and then the slab was unconditioned . They just didn't use the slab . It was like crazy . But that's the same kind of thing that you do here . You go to that extent and you go .
You're not going to have a good conversation with the customer if you walk in the door with the customer and go oh , by the way , we totally botched that and you're going to have to buy another one , and so that was kind of the background on .
This thing is now sitting in the container right next to the studio here on the other side of the wall there's a $12,000 space pack solstice heat pump that's sitting there out of the box that I can't return .
So you'll totally have to find it . I got to find it , I got to install it there .
Yeah , now that in this particular political environment where we're really looking at this whole electrification thing , I'll sell it somewhere .
It won't even take . I bet you have that thing sold before the end of the summer .
I'm hoping so .
Well , I mean , just even being realistic , I think you're going to have it .
But where I'm at with it right now is I'm trying not to be like oh , this is going to be a perfect job for it . Oh , that would be even better job for it . Oh , we should use it over here . You know like that because you got that knee jerk reaction to just hey , let's unload this thing and now I'm like gun shy .
Well , yeah , whatever , it's not even going to take any time , I guarantee it .
No .
How did ? How did ? How did the guys react when you told them oh , we're going to do because I'll tell you as much as I want to be like you know I get over it you got paid to do something and you get paid to undo it . It is very frustrating , it's super frustrating .
Remember back when you used to do new construction this is really no different than that and you'd rough something in as per print and plan and then they're like oh , but we're going to change the height of this Now , we're going to have countertop over the laundry now , and so everything has to drop down or it's going to be a stackable now , instead of two side
by side the laundry's . It's , for some reason , like there's just like this inner child that gets all like butt hurt but you have to redo something that you did . That was perfect . Yeah , that was perfectly fine because it was right .
But then they changed their mind , and I say it the way I do and I just pointed out the fact that it still sucks , even though I know you get paid to do it , you know , and you get paid to undo it and then do it again Like I get that . But that's so my question . Longer , you know , long story , longer . How did they handle their ?
okay with it or was yeah , they're , they're , they're fine with it . I mean we're still , we're right at the moment where we're still trying to identify exactly how the outdoor unit is either going to be a attached to the house or the garage rather , or attached to a concrete pad or to some sort of earth brace thing .
Not sure . Oh , you can't just put a pad down and set it on the pad .
He wasn't super keen on that . No , we totally could , totally could .
So there's this place here in Minnesota called the heating and cooling to . Yeah , I wonder if anybody listens that works there . This , that's a sheet metal shop . They do install , replacement , new construction , remodel , you know , air heating and air conditioning . They do a lot more than that , though .
They manufacture some stuff that is sold in the supply chain and they manufacture what are probably the most useful . Most it's a very comprehensible , simple and well thought out outdoor unit stands for these mini splits .
Interesting , they're so simple and they're powder coated and you look at it and you go , huh , the factory would suck compared to these things , but we just put them on a pad and then we just use one whole straps Because they're 3-8s rolled stock , it's 3-8s rod basically .
Oh , interesting that they build this framework out of and then two sliding brackets for mounting your unit on . It's so simple , it's ridiculous . It's like a hoop on the top , hoop on the bottom , and the bottom hoop is larger .
Right Well is that the one that You've seen them in the videos . Yeah , okay , I saw it on the next video . You've seen them ?
People always ask like , who makes that stand ? It's made by a local , basically a competitor , and they sell them at all . The good old sailors stock them , put them that way , that's how nice they are . And they just make them 20 miles from my house . But anyway , that's what I the few systems I've done with Ringer .
That's what he buys and he's like just buy these things from . Heating , cooling 2 ones . And he's like don't buy anything else , don't buy the factory , no , these are junk . And then he's like and then you just put four clips on the bottom and zip , zip , zip , because we just put them on plastic pads . That's all you're going to see here .
That's pretty much everywhere . That's what you get .
This one was yeah , this one was going to be on that and , like I say , now it's elaborated , it may have a poured in place , eight foot tall by four foot retaining wall or screen wall with a 12 inch return and that may have a footing . It feels down .
A better as a footing under it , as tall as you just described . Yeah , yeah .
But it's not going to be attached to the house , it's going to free float from the house . So yeah , here's the deal . Matt is awesome . He's been a phenomenal customer and I don't question anything . He says he wants . He has a vision of what he wants things to look like and that's what it's going to look like .
I'm okay with it .
I'm totally fine with that , yeah .
I have a couple of customers I've said in the past too , I've mentioned it before A builder I worked for a million years ago .
He shall remain nameless , but that guy could walk into a room , mark out all your fixtures in a bathroom here's the swing of the door , here's the cabinet base with the sink , here's the sink base itself , all this kind of stuff and it was just like that's awesome . And then I've got so that person he would like overdo it on that end .
And then if we were trying to figure something out , he was the guy that like no , just wait until I give you some drawings , because he knew . But the only way that somebody like us could understand what he knew definitively was if you get numbers and here's the dimensions , here's this .
Yeah , because that conversation is hard we're like no , I don't know if I want it to look like that . And you're like well , I don't know what you want it to look like , but give me some numbers , I can follow them .
Yeah , for an architect who's a very type A architect in like very , very , very detailed , and he physically so . I was at an early on pre-construction meeting with him and the general contractor and we're there looking and , okay , we're gonna do this , we're gonna move this toilet and we're gonna do this , and , yeah , that's fine .
And he hands me these two 11 by 14 drawing sheets , sheets of paper . They're the tile layout for the walk-in shower and the tile layout for the bathtub that was going in the other bathroom . And I'm like , okay , this is the tile layout . And he's like , yeah , so this is the tile we're using .
I have it in the garage , I've measured it and this is the grout joint thickness and this is two scale width grout lines and I want this . Everything will line up and be in alignment . Here's where the handle is gonna go , here's the shower head's gonna go here and this is the tub spout and this is that .
And I'm like you know what , I don't care , that is perfect . You give me dimension drawings off of studs , I'm down with it . But if you tell me that the tile guy's gonna come in and do a mud set tile and he may be an inch and a half to an inch and three quarters off of that stud .
Yeah , we're not playing Because I'm not gonna be the guy that's got the pipe in the wrong place , because the tile guy didn't put two inches of mud set on the wall instead of the inch and three quarters that you expect .
That's what you tell them . Give me the dimensions , exactly where mine has to be , and then we're gonna get it signed on , yeah , and then the tile guy can figure this out . Oh boy , yeah . So you ripped it out and you moved on .
I mean that to me that's the big story here too , honestly , because you had I mean , without getting too deep into it , I think we know you had to make a decision on the fly , just wasn't working and you didn't push it . I think a lot of people , I think not a lot of people I'm gonna back that up . I wish I didn't say that .
I think some people out in the field would have just got to that point and call it what you will . I'm just gonna , for ease , call it panic and kept it . Got the wrong system in place and well you know what ?
A lot of people don't even have the opportunity to be like hey boss , this ain't gonna work , because the boss is gonna be like oh no , you're gonna make it work .
You're gonna figure it out , yeah .
Extend the line set Right , exactly , exactly , yeah , and if you just you know we talk about it and it's been talked about to death , but reading the manual , right and our TFM .
Yeah .
Well , it's not that you did it , but it's just . Yeah , you know what I fully admit . The other day I was putting in a boiler . I've put in about a dozen of now . That's not nothing either for this particular boiler , as you know , the CU3A it's a that's an expensive boiler , yeah , and to put that many in , I think , is actually quite the accomplishment .
And I'm putting the latest one in , and it's summertime , which really ultimately sucks when you're putting in a . I hate putting a boiler in the summertime . Yeah , Because I know I'm going back , but I'm getting everything set up and I'm reading things seemingly in the manual for the first time . Right , you know what I mean ?
Yeah , You're like wait oh wait , it must have added a section .
Yeah , it must have added this .
This is advanced programming .
Yeah , exactly . And you're like , wait , wait , this does that , or oh , I can't do that . Oh , you know , it's funny how you learned . You know because I have read the manual more than one time , not every single time , because a lot of times you're doing the same thing as you did the last time . You know what I mean ? Yeah , this just sets up .
It's got one less zone or one more zone than the other one did . Yeah , whatever .
Yeah .
Here's the password .
I'm going to go ahead and change these seven parameters , and away we go .
Yeah , and you , but you had to make a decision on the fly and I commend
¶ Identifying Issues and Making Necessary Changes
you . I think it's worth worth the pointing out that a lot of people are not in a position to do that , Unfortunately , you know no , I mean it's yeah , it doesn't suck any less .
But it was one of those things where I'm glad that I in hindsight and we're not done with the job yet but in hindsight I'm glad that I , at the stage that we did that , I tore that thing out and said , okay , we're not doing this anymore , we're going to use something that's been that's better built for the better suited for this project .
Yeah , and I'm like say , I'm just , I'm thankful at this point that I was able to identify it when I did . And it wasn't . Hey , we got the buffer tank full of water and we got all this . It was working . Oh , by the way , we frozen broke two of the coils because you know , whatever , yeah , I can't get enough flow .
We don't have enough flow , because I didn't count that into it .
So yeah , yeah , it's always cheaper to to stop ahead of . Yeah , I know what you mean . Sometimes you don't like , you don't love the solution , but you might never like the solution . You know what I mean .
Like what's right is right , and that's what a lot of people understand in the trades , because like it's that black and white , like I love numbers and this works for me and I don't have to interpret nothing . What's right is right , you know .
Yep .
Cool Right on brother .
All right .
That was good . You better get back to work .
I don't pay for heat , see ya no-transcript .