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This episode brought to you by True Tech Tools.
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Well hello everyone.
Thanks for joining us once again.
Today we're hanging out with our good friend Eric Kaiser from True Tech Tools.
Eric, how are you sir?
I'm doing real good Clifton.
Thanks for having me on the show today.
Absolutely.
It's a lot of fun when we start talking about how the industry has changed.
I'm not going to say we are aged tech- we are experienced technicians.
We got some- yes.
One or two or three experienced anyhow.
We got a few years out in the field and the one thing that I can say both of us have been
able to witness is the evolution of tools in our industry.
It really is.
In our time in the industry and I've been in almost 20 years now and you've probably
been in a little longer even than that.
We have seen such a change in tools.
Yeah, oh man.
When I got into the industry there was barely any digital tools with regard to like pressure
gauges and things like that, mostly all analog.
There was no Bluetooth.
There was none of that.
Eugene and I were just joking on the show yesterday that I actually learned how to read
wet bulb with a sling psychrometer.
Oh yeah.
And carried a bottle of distilled- a little gallon of distilled water in my van for when
I was measuring wet bulb.
Yeah.
My first recovery unit had four wheels and you had to change the oil on it every time
you used it.
Mine had a roll cage.
It was a giant red thing called a reclaim I think, but it had all the filters and everything.
Yes, that may have been the same kind of equipment.
I mean the thing paid probably 50 or 60 pounds to try to drag that on a rooftop.
I still have my charging cylinder that still has R12 in it.
Wow.
Like my original charging cylinder.
So I've been able to gather up some of my original tools from, you know, it was a family-owned
business that I started in and now one of the sons is running it.
And so some of the older stuff has just been setting around and Bob was gracious enough
to give me some of our old items that we had been using in the past.
And so they're still as relevant today as they were then.
It's just much easier with tools of modern technology.
It's much easier and it's also more accurate and it can also be faster too.
Oh man, yes.
Which accuracy and speed is something that is of a concern, especially as we move towards
higher sear, more efficient equipment.
We're really trying to dial the performance in, dealing with tighter houses.
So now we're dealing with tighter shells.
We're actually dealing a lot with lower capacity equipment today because as we tighten houses
and buildings up, the capacity of the equipment that we need to condition those spaces actually
goes down.
Much less, which is wonderful.
It's great for everybody.
The units are getting bigger because they're higher efficiency, but the capacity we need
for those spaces is going down.
We need better tools to analyze those structures to be able to figure out what capacity units
go into them.
There's just a multitude of things that we couldn't even accomplish even 10 years ago,
much less 20 or 30 years ago.
And I think that's been the most interesting thing is you're exactly right.
10 years ago is when we really started diving into higher performance.
And I would consider these high performance tools much different than some of the things
that we have utilized in the past.
We were setting charges with systems and we were getting pretty close.
Today we're talking about critical measurements down into the ounces of refrigerant going
into a system and dialing these into optimal performance.
So the need for the accuracy in the tools is what has escalated so much and the software
that drives those things have evolved just as fast as every other form of digital technology.
We really have and software in this is key because it is taking all of the readings simultaneously.
It can take 20, 30 readings simultaneously on a system, combine it all in and give us
as a technician or the human operating it all the information in the same place and
or start making decisions or helping us make decisions about what to do, whether or not
that system is operating properly.
We take something really popular, still is for a lot of people.
And I ran the calculations on this recently and just because I was curious.
So depending on what kind you use, now this is an analog gauge, refrigerant gauge and
a thermocouple probe.
And I took the two specifications for those because like say we're calculating superheater
subcooling and now we have two instruments and we're taking the reading from both of
those instruments and we're making a calculation with them.
But now when we talk about accuracy, we have to deal with the inaccuracies, the potential
inaccuracies on two pieces of equipment, not just one.
So now we have a compounding inaccuracy, potential.
And this is brand new right out of the box.
So I took two pieces of just off the shelf tools, calculated it out.
And when I looked at the calculations that I ran, the was for a subcooling, I think for
410A running around 110 degree condensing temperature, which would end up being a 100
degree line temperature, which is not really unheard of, especially with some of the heat
we've been experiencing.
Yeah, absolutely.
But the potential inaccuracy for a 10 degree subcooling was plus or minus 4.8 degrees Fahrenheit.
Wow.
That's pretty significant when we're setting a critical charge in the system.
And the question I had to ask myself then was, I'm thinking about all these systems
I've worked on over the years, looked at those manufacturers.
So all the systems that I've worked on over the years, and I'm looking at the specifications
and thinking about the specifications on that.
I'm thinking back to what was the plus minus specification on a subcooling reading that
that manufacturer wanted?
I know the company that I installed and we're talking 20 plus years ago, it was plus or
minus two degrees.
So plus or minus two degrees, those instruments can't even achieve that accuracy.
Man, I haven't really thought about it from that perspective, but absolutely.
So we have to know accuracy.
What is that?
And realistically, that goes to customer expectations because if we come up to a customer's house
and we're working on a customer's piece of equipment as a technician or as a company,
they expect us to have accurate instrumentation.
They're expecting us to make accurate tests and give them accurate information.
Yeah.
What do we do when we go to a doctor's office?
We have expectations of a professional diagnosis.
Right.
We expect them to have accurate instrumentation to give us as a patient to make a decision.
Sometimes we go with their advice, sometimes we don't.
I've gone against the doctor's advice because I didn't think it was best for me in my situation.
And homeowners can do that too.
And that's fine.
I don't have a problem with that.
I give them information.
It's their money.
But we have to be able to give them accurate.
And if we give inaccurate information and they make a decision based on that, we are
taking responsibility for that decision because we gave them inaccurate information.
Absolutely.
And tools give us inaccurate information.
You can see a cascade down there.
Sure.
We always talk about validation.
And the only way that you can validate something is to actually measure it.
And the only way that you can have changes is if you have corresponding information that
validates the original readings.
And so accuracy really becomes compounded because I need to accurately know where I'm
beginning so that I can accurately read the results so that I can give a proper diagnosis
or at least a proper result from what changes have been made to something.
Yeah.
Especially if you're going doing before and after measurements.
Yeah.
Not only do we have to be accurate, but we need to be precise as well.
And a lot of people confuse those two terms.
So accuracy, I think of like a target and shooting bows and arrows at a target.
Sure.
And accuracy is hitting the center of that target.
Whereas precision may be shooting all those arrows in a tight group, but it might not
be in the middle of-
It could be anywhere on it.
It could be anywhere on the target.
Yeah.
Sure.
So we need to be both precise and accurate, hit the middle of the target with all of our
readings or all of our diagnosis and measurements, things like that.
And that, it really becomes very important.
And it was something that I didn't think about for a lot of years being in the field.
And as I've grown, as I've learned, and now as I'm spending all my time around tools,
I'm actually really starting to dig more into this and realizing that, hey, I could have
done a lot better in the field.
But now I've got this knowledge and I need to come out here and share it with everybody
else so that everybody else can learn faster and learn from others because one of my favorite
ways to learn is from others' mistakes.
It's a lot cheaper and easier.
So let's talk about, as this evolution of tools is happening right in front of us, in
the past, at least, my experience from the residential and light commercial side is if
we're in a service van, if we're in a company provided van, typically the company is going
to provide some of the larger equipment, recovery, vacuum pump.
But when it comes down to what we consider hand tools, a lot of us as technicians have
to provide our own hand tools and gauges.
And I know it can be very expensive, but let's talk about the repercussions of not investing
into proper tools.
So not investing in tools, I mean, it's kind of like not investing in yourself.
Yes.
It's kind of like not investing in your house.
If you don't keep up and put quality products on the outside of your house or into the structure
of your house, you might get a roof leak on your head.
I mean, you might get a roof collapse in the middle of the night.
That's right.
I remember a story from a friend of mine who was a coal miner when I was a kid.
And he was literally laying in bed one night with his wife and his ceiling fan fell out
of the ceiling.
Oh, now he rolled over mumbled something about, oh, the roof's falling in.
We got to bolt that back up because that's what they do in coal mines.
They run these long bolts up in to hold the roof up.
His wife didn't think that was very funny though.
But whatever it was that didn't get done right on that ceiling fan, I don't know the whole
backstory to that.
Ceiling fan fell out of the ceiling in the middle of the night.
And that to me was always like, hey, somebody didn't do something really right.
It started falling down on top.
Some procedure is not followed properly here.
But that's what I consider investing in good tools, investing in good knowledge, because
those are both sides of it.
The tools allow us to do things that we can't do maybe with our bare hands.
They're an extension of our bare hand if we're trying to physically manipulate something,
do something.
We can't take screws out with our fingernails most of the time, 99.9% of the time.
That's right.
Those are really stripped out on that rooftop from somebody hitting it with too many uggaduggas.
And then they fall out sometimes.
But we have all these things that are extensions of ourselves to do this job faster, to do
it better, to do it easier.
We could go around and take screws out all day long with a handheld screwdriver, but
nobody does because they're not powered screwdrivers.
If we look back at the old timers, if somebody ever comes across sheet metal ducts with flat
head screws in it.
And there are still some out there.
But if you ever see those and you think about how they had to put those screws in, how much
time every single one of those holes was pre-drilled with a hand drill, not a power drill, a hand
typically.
And then the screw was put in with a manual screwdriver because they didn't have power
screwdrivers.
90 degrees at a time.
Yeah.
And they used ratcheting screwdrivers.
Those were very popular.
Yeah, that's true.
Holy cow.
All those screws.
You might count hundreds of thousands of screws in a duct system.
And I think back at that and I look at how easy we have it today.
So and realistically, I know some of the listeners on this show are also instructors.
So I think it's very important from a school level, from an education level in the schools
to be teaching this new technology.
I hear a lot of instructors on a regular basis say, oh, we have to teach them the analog.
And that's good.
I know.
Teach them the analog way.
Sure.
But.
Maybe write it first.
Yeah.
But then let's get some exposure into those tools that they're actually going to be using
in the field because analog may do good for an emergency or an older tool may be good
for an emergency, but we have to keep up with the technology that they're going to be handed
by companies in the field.
Now, personally, I've worked for a number of different companies.
Some of them provided a lot of tools.
Some of them provided a very little bit of tools and I own now I own a ton of tools of
my own just because I kept buying.
And a lot of the companies I find they were hesitant to buy tools because technicians,
let's face it, sometimes we're not the easiest on tools.
And I prefer to have a partnership between myself and the company where I own the tools
and they'll replace them if.
And I've done that too.
Now, if I lose the tool on the job, that's on me.
That's my responsibility.
But if I break the tool on the job, that's a different thing.
Or if I wear it out, something like that, batteries go bad.
They get worn out over time.
Then the company pays to replace it.
But it's my tool when I go.
And then the reason I like that is because I have that.
Now I know what I'm dealing with.
I can I get to pick and choose somewhat.
Now, today, a lot of companies are starting to standardize test equipment.
Exactly.
Their platform.
Yes.
So all technicians are using the same things.
They can teach on it.
They know what to order for service materials.
Right.
And they can keep backup tools at the office.
So exactly, it does go bad because let's face it, just like the equipment that we work on
every day, this stuff wears out and gets it goes bad.
It breaks.
It's just a tool.
It is.
It's a tool.
It's not going to last forever.
Even the really old stuff that we like to say lasts forever doesn't necessarily last
forever.
They all require maintenance.
You know, when we talk about these new tools, we have to be very realistic, especially as
educators.
I hear the same thing all the time.
If we don't teach the fundamentals, they're never going to understand it.
And that is so true.
And I truly believe on teaching with mechanical gauges and thermistors to calculate basic
superheat subcooling.
But at the same time, that'd be realistic about the capabilities of modern tools and
technologies.
And really, if we think about it, are you going to ask a Gen Z to buy a mechanical tool
when they have grown up with digital?
Everything they know is digital because it is accurate and because it is faster.
So it's not really realistic to put the expectations of our own learning into the hands of a new
generation who learn in a different manner.
Is it right or wrong?
Well, that comes down to your own evaluation of what tools that you think are appropriate.
I personally like to teach on both.
I like to show the mechanical and I like to show the digital in all aspects just so that
they see the fundamentals.
But when they get out into the field, what are they going to buy?
They're buying digital.
And that's exactly right.
I mean, they're used to digital.
They're used to phones.
It feels natural.
It does.
It feels very natural.
It's very comfortable to them.
You and I, we kind of grew up in an analog age.
Absolutely.
We live that transition.
We started out with dial telephones and transitioned to push button telephones, and now we have
touch screens.
So we're kind of in a, I would say somewhat of a unique generation in that we can bridge
that gap a little bit easier.
But I do like, and I agree with you teaching on some of the older technologies because
I think it gives an appreciation for where we're at today.
It does.
It shows how far we've come.
And I embraced digital, especially refrigeration gauges, but I have really embraced the digital
and the technologies as we've gone forward.
I started with digital refrigeration gauges in about 2004.
Yeah, I think somewhere in that ballpark, it would have been about the same.
2004, 2007.
I'm sorry, 2007.
And I still own them today, still own the first pair.
And they're still just as accurate as the day I bought them.
Yeah, take it.
You know, and they got beat around in the back of trucks in rainstorms, you name it.
They're still kicking around.
Quality can last for a long time.
Exactly.
We have came a long way with the quality of our test instruments, and I just hope everyone
understands that we are evolving as an industry.
There are things that are going to transition away from.
When we start talking about tools and people are hesitant to move to new technologies,
I ask how many of our educators are using the mechanical voltmeters, the analog voltmeters,
the non RMS voltmeters that they grew up on?
And very rarely do we see those still being used in our programs.
We might use them as a history lesson, but when it comes to practical application, I'd
say they're all using digital.
They'd better be using the digital equipment if they're getting anywhere in your frequency
drives and things like that, because you've got to have that true RMS.
The averaging meters don't work today with what we're trying to really measure out here.
And if we want any kind of accuracy or precision, that's the caliber.
All right, Eric Heiser, we sure appreciate you joining us today and we look forward to
many more discussions on the evolutions of tools and where can everyone find TrueTech
tools?
TrueTechTools.com.
Thanks, Clifton.
Awesome, man.
We appreciate your time.