Kung Fu Maintenance

Maintenance Supervisor/Director for over ten years, artist, author, inventor, musician, home inspector, Certified Pool Operator, and EPA Certified as a Universal HVAC Technician.

Feb

2013

How to Charge An Air Conditioner Low On Freon Through Suction Side Real Time Blog

Alright, got a pretty old unit. Well got a unit low on freon.
You can see one of these energy devices that turns off the AC on the front of the unit some of the electrical companies out here in California hook these up so they can turn the unit off at peak hours and than they pass on a little bit of energy savings to you, give you a cheaper rate on your
air conditioner.

This one is actually mounted on the service door. Anyway I am gonna take this door off. And I have got a unit that is low on freon.
It is not cooling so. At least not cooling very good anyway.

Get into this and than I’ll go downstairs
and turn the unit on. Get the door here. Put this off to the side. There we go. Let’s see what is going on here.

I am going to go ahead and get my gauges set up here.
And than charge this up here.

My gauges are not in the best shape especially the high side so I am just going to be charging it up through the low side today. It’s time for me to order some new gauges.

Right here is our service line hook up. And what you want to do is make sure the valve is off up top here on the low side and the high side. Ok
Now remove my schrader valve cap and listen for any kind of hissing.
To indicate if there is a leak. And it seems Ok.

And it’s got these quick connect fittings. You always want to use these quick connect fittings. You really want to wear gloves to but since i’m just going through the high side. Not so bad I mean I’m just going through the low side. It is not so bad on the low side.

A little bit worse on the high side. Ok now that the line is hooked up there we want to make sure that we purge any airfrom the lines.
And than I will go ahead and hook up the middle yellow line to our refrigerant can. Up top here. And again got a quick connect up here. You don’t need a quick connect up here on the middle line as much because you can turn the refrigerant off here. But anyway I have one on there so. And were going to open our can of refrigerant here. and this is R-22.

Ok. Here we go and than purge our line here. So I am just going to crack it. Let a little bit of refrigerant out. And now we are ready to charge it. So I am just going to open it for a second and than go down and turn the unit on so we can charge it. Yeah it feels like it is low so.

Ok I am going to run downstairs. Be right back.

Ok. So were on now. Everything is running good. The fan motor is running.
The compressor has kicked on. And you can see this is showing like only ten pounds of pressure. Not too good.

Definitely low on freon so. Oh yeah. Sounds thirsty. So I was working in this unit yesterday and noticed the air conditioner wasn’t cooling so I knew I needed to get up here today.

Get up here early before it gets hot.

Here is the accumulator and it is starting to get cold It is cold about half way up. Anyway I am just going to be doing this one by feel Because like I said my gauges are kind of on their last leg. Time to replace them.
See how loose that is I mean this could be tightend up but also the needles are kind of bent and the caps are starting to fall off so time for some new gauges but these are a cappilary tube system and the nice thing about a capillary tube system is it is a lot more forgiving than other systems. It can actually, you would have to actually really kind of try to overcharge these.

Anyway once it is nice and cold here on both sides of the accumulator than I know that it is going to be good. So I am just going to Wait until this flashes nice and ice cold. And like I said if I put a little bit of extra refrigerant in
it is going to be okay because it just holds it in the pot. And the way the capillary tube system works is, it is a fixed orifice so it only allows so much refrigerant through at a time. you know if you’re a little bit overcharge it is not like it lets more refrigerant through. It just stores it here and lets it go through. As long as you are only charging
with vapor. you don’t want to flip your can over and charge it with liquid because than the liquid might
stay in the lines and can actually cause liquid slugging of the compressor

You can probably hear the refrigerant going into the system You can hear the change now as the pressures are starting to get balanced and get more closer to where they should. You can hear the sound difference less and less
refrigerant is being suctioned in as it starts to climb.

We definitely have a leak somewhere. Possibly here at the schrader valve.
Which is where you usually get your leaks. You can kind of see some signs of moisture or oil right there. I am kind of guessing it is from the schrader valve. I will pop it off and take a peak inside the high side.

You can hear the pressure difference now of the refrigerant going in is a lot less than when we first did this. And it doesn’t seem to be leaking from the schrader valve so I will go ahead and tighten that back on.

What I have is a leak repair additive that I can add to the system because this one it has been good the whole summer. It hasn’t gone low on refrigerant or anything so it has just got a tiny micro leak in it somewhere. Those additives are kind of good for that as long as there is no moisture in the system. Ok and feeling my line it is still not cold. It is kind of warm. And we can check what our pressure is at here.

I’ll try to get the camera to focus a little bit. There we go. We will go ahead and turn the hand valve off. See where were at. Were at about about 40 pounds pressure there and on the green dial were only at fifteen so
we got a ways to go.

You can probably hear it I am going to turn it back on. I hear a lot of people don’t like these Janitrolls to much, but they are pretty easy to work on. Pretty simple. Maybe I’ve just gotten used to them. Been out here for a while so.

If you are using the high side you can get more of an accurate
reading of what your refrigerant levels are at.

Anyway when you work with refrigerant long enough you
probably will reach some day where your gauges really are not working properly and you are going to need to be able to charge the unit by feel
or by temperature and the other way we can check this is
check for the fifteen to twenty degree split inside the unit at an incoming and an outgoing register.

I have a video on that if you want to see that I can put the link on this video.
Its starting to get there. It is starting to feel a little colder down here. Allright.

Up on the roof top in Palm Springs here. Give you a little view around. Look around. While this thing charges up here. Pretty nice up on the palm trees here.

My palm trees are due for some trimming. Got a lot of dates on them.
Pretty good dates to. I have snacked on a few.

If you look around you can see the mountains over there.
Its a nice cooler day. It has actually cooled off out here now.

This Summer was a little bit milder. I think the hottest it got was about one nineteen, something like that. I remember a few days where it was a hundred and sixteen. Those were pretty warm.

But I have had other summers where it has hit as high as a hundred twenty seven degrees and so this Summer was pretty mild.

I got away easy.

I went through and well we preventative maintenanced the heck out of our air conditioning units to make it a better summer so. We had a much better summer.

This can take some time. There is a couple ways to speed the charge.
With the compressor being low on freon the freon helps cool
the compressor and with the compressor being low on freon the compressor starts to get pretty warm.

If you have an ice pack you can put that on top here and that can speed the charge. Or some really cold water so I have got some really cold water. And I am just going to pour it on here. Avoiding the electrical contacts obviously. And that helps speed the charge a little bit. Its starting to get there.

Ok, once I am all finished I will have to follow this up with that leak additive. To seal of any leaks here.

See this line down at the bottom of the compressorkind of funny
it is actually a heater. It heats up the bottom of the compressor.
And that helps it when it first starts to be in kind of the right condition for starting the compressor.

Right here is a filter drier. You can see the arrow
pointing this way. On a heat pump the arrow will point both ways because a heat pump has a reversing valve where it changes the direction
where as here the condenser is removing heat from the unit.
and at the evaporator it absorbs heat. On a heat pump it can switch to where you know the evaporator was absorbing heat and the condenser giving off the heat on a heat pump it can switch back to where now the condenser becomes the evaporator And the evaporator becomes the condensor. They switch roles. So you can heat your unit with a heat pump or you can cool your unit.

Heat pumps are a lot more sensitive about the charge. Your charge needs to be a lot more accurate where as like I was telling you these units have capillary tubes so they are a lot more forgiving.

It’s getting there. Drink a little water myself. Give you another shot of Palm Springs here. The mountains there.

There’s a tram that goes all the way to the top of the mountain up there. I guess there is like a cafe stuff like that. I’ve been out here like eight years
I still haven’t been up there. Some day maybe.
Or not.

A bird is snacking on some dates there. Happy campers. Alright see how we’re doing here. It’s getting there. It just takes a little time.

This unit seems to be in pretty good condition for being twenty six years old. Still kicking. Still kicking out the cool air. Getting there.

This is an accumulator it helps prevent liquid refrigerant from getting to the compressor and slugging the pistons. A lot of units these days don’t have these on them. Some of the heat pumps have them inside the unit.
These ones have been done outside.

It seems they went to some extra steps to preserve these units. This one doesn’t have it but on some of these other ones they have got a like another safety device this one has been taken out like on the high side it’s got a little piston in it as a protective shut off.

See if one of the other units has it. I will show it to you here. This one no.
bring you over here as this takes a little time. Wow all these units are gone.

Looks like they took them out on this whole roof. Maybe I am not going to get to show you.

Here is one. See right here this deal. Not exactly sure what you call this exactly. Maybe somebody else can tell me.

And exactly how it works i’m not sure either. I think it has just like a
piston that cuts off the flow if something’s wrong. If there is something wrong in the system. Something a little bit more for me to learn about.
There is always more.

Anyway go back to our unit over there. You can see these service mats.
You always want to do your refrigerant work, your air condition work, on the mats. Especially if you are changing a fan motor or putting in a new unit. You don’t want to put any chunks in the built up roof material.

Anyway it is getting colder. Were not there yet.
Disconnect box is over there.

Kind of funny story I heard of some places where the disconnect
they had people stealing all the units. They were stealing air conditioning units.

Some rougher areas have to do some drastic methods but anyway.
I heard about where they, what they did was they bypassed the disconnnect so that if you wanted to turn off power to work on the unit you would have to go into the unit itself and turn off the breaker.

It is sort of like an electric fence I was thinking about it is kinda like having an electric fence. A deterrent for people stealing units, stealing refrigerant, and stealing the entire units.

By having the power where you can’t disconnect it they were less likely to take those and they were stealing the disconnects and all that kind of stuff too so there is some rougher areas out there that call for some drastic measures.

No not the norm, but in those situations people have to get creative.
Have to do something different if there is a rough area.

Alright it is getting nice and chilly now. Still got a little ways. Might put a little more water on the compressor here. Try and speed this up.

I can feel it flash a lot, you know, after I put the water on and than I feel it right here. At the unit it just seems like all of a sudden it draws a lot
more refrigerant in.

It’s starting to flash nice and cold now. We are almost there.

Now I don’t know if you can see it so much in the camera but you can start to see a little bit of sweat on the line as this gets colder. Not completely there yet but we’re real close.

This is the little high side line to the compressor. You want to avoid
touching that especially on that end. I mean back here this part of it it is not so hot. But right there it is really hot. I have burned my arm lots of times by accident. Touch that aghhh tshhh.

Looks like not the best soldering job down there but definitely not the worst I’ve seen. This kind of looks like a newer compressor to. Like this isn’t the original compressor. I’m just guessing. Like it was replaced at some point.

Augh yeah we’re getting nice and chilly. Chilly, Chilli.

The final test again is going to be checking for the fifteen to twenty degree split inside. But it’s gonna happen. I have done enough of these to know
the way it is. Were good now. Nice and chilly.

Can’t trust my gauges. They are just too old. I gotta get some new gauge heads. See how it is showing twenty five on the green dial. Fifty on the pressure.

Nice and cool today. Man, what a difference it makes. I think it is supposed to be like a high of 81 today, 85, I am not too sure, but it is nice now. Probably about seventy six degrees outside. If feels good. Nice day.

Ok, we are there now. Nice and chilly. So I am going to go ahead and turn off the line here. And than disconnect the line. Listen for any leaks there. And everything is Ok.

And than make sure we put our schrader valve cap back on.
So there we go. We’re good there. Come up here,
and turn our refrigerant can off.

Disconnect our hoses. Than we have to release the refrigerant
from the line. We don’t want to leave it stored in there. Unless I was going to go and charge another unit right away which I am not.

So I am just going to go ahead and release it. There we go, and now its out. That one too. The middle one also.

Really the more accurate method is to hook up the high side but anyway.
We are good here. Alright.

Subscribe so you can get some of the be the first to get some of the new videos when I put new videos up.

I will try to make some more good videos for you. I’ll see you out there.

Ok so here it is inside the unit. It has already dropped to
seventy five I think that it started around seventy eight seventy nine.
Something like that.

And the air feels nice and cool coming out of the vent. Lets go back here to
where the evaporator is. The air handler right here. And just like on the roof, the low side should be nice and chilly all the way to right here.
And it is. Nice and chilly.

You can see it. You can kind of see it starting to sweat. You can see on my finger. For a second how it’s like moisture.

So that is why we have got the insulation here.
So oh it’s nice and chilly.Perfect see it there the moisture on my finger. There we go. We got our condensate drain. The drain vent
Right here alright.

Good old hydronic supply lines.

Good to go!

Jan

2013

How To Fix Loose Stove Burners: Secure Hardwired Elements

Okay today I’m going to be showing you how to secure a loose surface range element. Got a loose surface range element right here. What it should have is a set screw underneath.

As you can see this one is just floating around freely and that’s not good.
This ones missing the screw. I was able to find another one that I had salvaged from another unit

Anyway, this one just screws in here in the little screw port here.
And once you get the screw started, you can see the two teeth there
just get anchored up and underneath right here and than tightened down like so.

You can also use a nut driver but this is where a six in one comes in real handy so you can get in there and tighten it down. The next trick with
these is to make sure that the range pan goes below.

You can see here the ring goes on top and the pan goes below.
Sometimes these are a little tricky to set doesn’t want to sit down so I was able to set that one down a little bit better.

Slip the pan underneath first, and than the ring on top. Like so.
And we’re all set there. Again that can look a little bit better.Let me lower this down just a tiny bit.

Sometimes you will have one of these that is a little bit stubborn to get it to seat nice and flush. There we go now that is nice and flush.

Good to go anyway that is how to secure a loose range element. Now this will still move around a little bit which is ok. But at least it is anchored in there and behaving the way that it should.

Ready to go!

Jan

2013

Five Most Common Problems With Bathroom Faucets ~ Blog

Ok, today I wanted to show you the five most common problems with vanity bathroom faucets such as the (Price Pfister) one you see here.

One of the most often problems is a leak from the handle. Now if you are seeing a leak from the top of the handle, I am going to take this off just to show you, taking this sort of pretaking this apart with a flat blade knife and than pull the screw out. Just to make it faster.

If it is leaking from the handle it’s usually an O ring inside the top of the cartridge here. That’s one problem.

The next problem is if you have a leak from the spout. If you have a leak from the spout it’s often the bibb washer underneath here.
and that bibb washer needs to be replaced.

Now one nice upgrade you can do is to use a ceramic disc cartridge
which this one has already been done. Converted to a ceramic disc cartridge.

Here is a link https://amzn.to/2GFviej (Amazon Link) to a ceramic disc cartridge that works well for “Price Pfister” two handle bathroom or kitchen faucets.

It’s kind of nice in that it doesn’t have the same squeezing affect as a bibb washer. But anyway the most often cause of a dripping tap is from the bibb washer.

The third most common problem with vanity faucets is low flow or taking a long time to heat and what that most often is is a aerator. Now it doesn’t always appear so, you don’t always see the low flow but a lot of times that’s the cause.

First thing to check when you are having
it take a long time to get hot or you’re seeing low flow at your tap
is to change the aerator.

Fourth most common problem with vanity faucets is a leak from the supply line so looking down underneath here what you want to do is check it at all your fitting connections and feel for any leaks at all the connection points and that way make sure that your supply line is not leaking.

And the fifth most common source of trouble spots for the vanity faucet is the angle stop itself. so you want to feel in between. In between there at all of the fitting connections. You can see there’s a nut here that tightens down here sometimes this can be tightened. you want to use two wrenches if you have got a leak there.

And that is the five most common problems with vanity faucets.

Jan

2013

Five Most Common Problems With Refrigerators ~ Blog

Ok, today I am going to be discussing with you the five most common problems with refrigerators.

0:18 Number one is a stuck fridge fan. When you open your fridge and it is in it’s run cycle you should hear the sound like you are hearing now, the fan motor spinning. Sometimes what happens is the fan blades get stuck against the side or the fan blade itself goes so far back that it seats against the motor and than the blades get stuck and don’t turn.

0:42 Second most common problems with refrigerators is drips from the ceiling. Now if it’s just small drips it can be caused by food put in that’s hot like boiling or something that had boiled and than set in the fridge without a cover on it. The way to eliminate that is to keep a cover on your food.

But if your seeing excessive drips from the inside center here then it may indicate that you have a clogged condensate drain which is a very common problem with refrigerators.

01:11 The third most common problem with refrigerators is the compressor not running. If you listen back here you can kind of hear the hum of the compressor. So if you don’t hear that sound that low humming sound that’s different from the fan going than your starter may need to be replaced on the compressor.

01:31 The fourth most common problem with refrigerators is torn gaskets. The way that you prevent that from happening is to clean the gaskets here often, and to clean the fridge surface here often, where it mates. What happens is sticky foods stick in there and than pulling apart from the gasket
eventually can tear the gasket wear out the gasket so that’s the way to
kind of prevent it.

Each door manufacturer is different so you might have to consult your directions on how to replace your gasket. Some of them will have screws along the inside portion here of the gasket in order to change it.
Others will have a press in place groove that the gasket gets pressed into.
Others the entire door portion will pull apart so that you can replace the gasket. So each kind is just slightly different.

02:20 And the fifth most common problem with refrigerators is being off balance. What you want is for when you let your fridge door go you want it to just close nice and gently and close all the way.

You want the fridge to aim towards the back just a tiny bit so that condensate goes down and stays along the back of the fridge and settles into the pan that’s on the back on the top of the compressor usually. But anyway, you want your fridge to angle towards the back just a tiny bit.

If your fridge is off balance there is usually an adjustment screw here.
Or some fridges have a wheel that is turned here. This ones got a wheel that’s turned, as you can see, one on each side. And these can be adjusted
just by lifting up a little bit on the fridge and than turning this either by hand or with channel locks.

So that’s the five most common problems with refrigerators.

Jan

2013

Five Most Common Problems With Vertical Blinds ~ Blog

Five Most Common Problems With Vertical Blinds

OK today, I am going to be showing you the five most common problems with vertical blinds.

00:13 One of the most common problems is simply a blind slat being out of step something as simple as this where it is just going to hang up and now your blinds are not going to turn and open up.

So first thing is your going to want to go along and make sure that all of your blinds are in a row and that’s one of the most common problems.

00:35 Another most common problem is a broken blind slat itself often they will break off right here and what you can do is flip your blind slat over and use a hole punch and punch some new holes and than re hang it up.

If you want to you can trim it off straight or you can get replacement slats and trim them down. I have a video on those repairs, video on that repair and I will try to put the link on this video so you can click over to it.

01:02 The Third most often repair that’s needed is a stripped master gear now as I showed you if one of the deals was hanging up or the blinds were hanging up and someone continued to try to force it. It can strip the master gear. And there is a couple of different types of master gears this one is a
self aligning master gear it links underneath the first slat. This one you can take out these screws and link it to the first carrier. I’ve got a video on that also so I will try to put the link on here.

01:35 Fourth most common type of repair that is needed is where you have an individual blind that is not turning all the other ones are turning just fine. And that one individual blind is not turning.

What’s needed is either the head the uh… the gear herehas got some broken teeth on it or the comb gear itself has broken off and these can be replaced.

I also have a video on that I will put the link on this video it is for the stem
and comb gear.

02:05 And the Fifth most common problem with vertical blinds is that the blinds are hard to open. Now, this one is not so bad, it slides pretty easy, but if you had a set that was hard to open what you want to do is lube it with silicone spray. Apply it to the entire length inside the track. And it is not the best smelling stuff in the world but it really does a good job in lubing the blinds because what it does silicone lube dries and it still maintains its lubricant qualities. And because it dries it is not going to collect as much dust and dirt and debris and than clog up.

Anyway once you put it on let it dry for about 15 minutes and than go ahead and work the blinds in and you are good to go.

And that is the five most common problems with vertical blinds.
There’s a few others. I will try to add them on later but that’s about the five most common.

Jan

2013

How To Learn And Improve Your English ~ Blog

00:10 Welcome to the Kung Fu Maintenance dashboard!
00:12 Today I’m going to be showing you well, one-way
00:16 you might improve your english if your learning
00:20 reading, writing, understanding
00:21 improving
00:23 pronunciation, dialogue, all those types of things
00:25 what i have here is using the closed captions feature inside
00:29 youtube
00:30 I haven’t done it to all my videos
00:32 I’ve made a start here in doing this
00:35 and in translating
00:36 I’ll maximize it
00:40 what it does down at the bottom is it has got these captions
00:44 as long as you select that.
00:46 Now let me show you how to do that. Down at the very bottom
00:50 click on this little “cc” button right here
00:54 and that turns on the captions
00:56 and now you click on the captions button
00:59 and you can bring up your language so let us say spanish, russian, portuguese
01:04 japanese, italian, german, french,
01:07 chinese, arabic
01:08 I’d like to add more languages little by little. If you don’t see your
01:12 language here please just put a comment on this video requesting
01:15 your language and
01:17 I’ll consider adding it if it’s possible for me to do it. Also little by little I
01:21 may need help with translations so
01:24 if you’re interested in
01:25 translating or proofing translations you can also put a
01:28 message on here. I am going to be doing a lot of videos and
transffering them over
01:32 also sometimes the translations may not be that good
01:36 so let us
01:37 see on this one today I wanted to go over the five most common problems with washing machines
01:41 converted it to spanish
01:43 and it says it in spanish. Now i’m not sure how accurate that is
01:47 you’ll have to tell me
01:50 I poquitho(Spanish for tiny) know only a tiny
01:51 bit of Spanish
01:54 not enough to translate this but i am trying to learn, I like to learn
01:58 different languages it’s just kind of something I have been studying
02:00 anyway
02:01 anyway here it is in Arabic and
02:05 here it is in Chinese
02:07 so anyway you if you wanted to improve your
02:09 English
02:10 this would be one way
02:12 you can have the subtitles in your own language and than
02:17 watch the video
02:18 and you will get to kind of learn
02:20 two things, well a few things. You will get to learn how to fix stuff as well as
02:26 learn a different language so hopefully that is helpful to you
02:30 uh… one more thing here
02:33 Let me pause the video here
02:36 and go over to my
02:38 blog site The KFM Blog
02:41 now you can get here
02:42 by going to my channel
02:44 I just clicked on my channel here the
KungFuMaintenance channel and i’ve
02:48 got a link here to the blog The KFM Blog
02:52 now on the blog
02:53 I’ve got all these different blogs and I have started putting the translations
02:57 from the
02:57 the youtube videos below each
03:00 video blog so
03:02 for instance this one is all translated
and it’s got the time segments so that you can
03:07 translate it over easier but the
03:09 thing that is really neat about this
03:12 about my site here
03:14 is that you can go down
03:15 to the translator and you can actually translate
in into your language so
03:21 if you wanted to see it in a different language
for instance let us say you understand Hebrew
03:24 really good but you don’t understand English so well
03:27 than you can
03:28 click over
03:29 and change it into Hebrew
03:31 than you can read the articles in Hebrew
03:33 and watch the video
03:34 to go along with it so
03:37 little by little I am going to be adding more and more to this
03:40 again you are probably going to see some errors so
03:43 you have to take it with a
03:46 grain of salt here but
03:47 little by little I am going to have to add this and edit and fix
03:51 different problems there may be some humorous stuff
03:54 I’ve actually had some pretty humorous things
happen with the translation
03:58 hopefully uh… nothing offensive in there with the translation please forgive me if
04:03 there is, it’s not me I don’t translate this i don’t know
04:06 these languages I don’t know hot to speak Finish or German
04:09 I do try to learn
04:11 things a little bit but I’m a far ways from actually understanding those things
04:16 so anyway I hope that helps if you’re
04:18 out there wanting to learn english as well
as pick up some maintenance skills
04:22 along the way this is kind of a nice way to
learn
04:25 a few things at the same time so i hope
you like, favorite, and subscribe
04:29 and if you
04:31 feel up for it there is a donate button
here that helps me do what I do
04:35 Let me try to get this back
04:38 to English here let’s see here we go
04:41 and now it is going to translate it back into
English so
04:44 also got a link to my book
04:46 on the blog here
04:49 and got the donate button where you can
04:51 buy me a cup of coffee
04:52 which would be great
04:53 helps me do what I do and put a
04:56 little energy behind it
04:57 kick start me on the next blog
04:59 or on the next video
05:01 anyway I hope the videos help
05:03 hope you like this video hope it helps some of you out there. Thanks for watching!

Jan

2013

Washing Machine: Five Most Common Problems Blog

OK, today I wanted to go over the five most common problems with washing machines with you.

00:19 The number one most often problem with washing machines is a washing machine that doesn’t drain or spin, most often caused by a broken lid switch.

You should hear a click as this goes into place. If you don’t hear that click then your, or if your washing machine is not going into its final cycles
it’s most often this lid switch here.

Sometimes you can just press on this right side and get it to engage the switch. Also occasionally you can just adjust the post a little bit
so that the post will stick further into the switch which will engage the switch. Also sometimes you can just adjust the switch or tighten it up.
Often it needs to be replaced I have a video on that.

01:05 Second most often problem with washing machines often goes undetected something you’d probably want to check regularly is that your agitator dogs are working properly. What it should do is turn the bottom one-way or the other. So this one is turning it like it should and the agitator dogs are functioning. Now if it’s not doing that than your clothes are just getting rinsed. They are not really getting washed. It is an often missed
problem with washing machines. And it is probably very common because the agitator dogs inside here are designed to break if someone’s arm was to get stuck in here or if something was to bind up too much the agitator dogs will actually strip on purpose as a safety mechanism.

01:50 Third most common problem with washing machines is a clogged pump at the impeller. Sometimes a penny or a button, or something else, a bobby pin, whatever goes down the drain line and gets stuck at the pump.

02:05 Fourth most common problem is a leak. Most often leaks occur up on the left side.

Fifth most common problem is a washing machine out of balance. Now the most often cause of the machine being out of balance is just a matter of redistributing the clothes. Usually a towel or something gets on one side and you hear the whump whump whump whump of the machine.

What you need to do is open the lid and than go ahead and readjust the clothing or go ahead and readjust the towel. Readjust the items in the bin to get it more balanced. Then go ahead and run it again see if it works out and you have no more out of balance deal.

Sometimes you could lose a spring. Most often times it’s just that the
machine is out of balance. Eventually I’ll have to make you a video showing you how to reset the spring if it did come off.

There are three different shocks and then there is a spring that holds the machine basin in place.

Now the way to check if your machine is still in balance is just ahead and run it empty with water. Let the water fill up. If the machine finds its balance than you know it was just a matter of the clothes or the laundry items being out of balance

Anyway that is the five most common problems with washing machines!

~ TFW ~..~ KFM ~

Jan

2013

Dishwashers: Five Most Common Problems Blog

Just wanted to through a bunch of things today on dishwashers.

1) Clogged Float Cup Switch 0:22
2) Water Shooting from Air Gap. 1:42
3) Dishwasher not Draining 2:31
4) Soap Dispenser Door Not Latching Properly 4:00
5) Stuck Impeller 4:47

00:22 If you ever see water coming from right here running down. You can see like a calcium deposit or you see water dripping from that side. Usually what it is is a stuck float switch.

Now these float switches on this particular model have a little phillips screw back here that comes off. It is usually just soap scum. Soap scum just builds up inside there and it will look a lot worse than it actually is but it is actually just soap residue left behind.

So let me show you here. I’m not sure. This one is not leaking like I was saying but oh yeah! You can see all the soap residue inside there.

Well this little cup floats up as the water fills and engages this little switch here. Releases that little switch and that’s how the water knows. Well that’s how the dishwasher is told to shut the water off. So anyway we gotta clean all this stuff out here and that is how you fix that problem.

So I’m gonna clean this one all out since I am turning the unit. That way when someone moves in they don’t have a surprise the first time they use the dishwasher.

01:42 Up here on the dishwasher this is your air gap. Now if you ever see water spit out of this air gap it’s an indication of the garbage disposal drain line being clogged.

From the dishwasher air gap under here you can see this line going into the garbage disposal. This is our disposal to drain line and this gets built up with gunk and food so you got to undo the clamp here and clear this line out or replace the line. One of the two of and for stubborn ones you can hook it up to a hose bibb and just flush it out, clean it out. There’s another way to do it also where you can take a brush and run it down inside here
remove this cap here.

Now if your dishwasher wasn’t draining that would be a good time to check inside this cap. Also often there is a, set this down so I can get my other hand on it. Anyways you just squeeze these two clips in and than just pull the cap right out.

Whoa!

02:47 I don’t know if you saw that but there is like a chicken bone down there. Sometimes if you’re disposal drain is not draining it’s time to check this here. In order to get that chicken bone to float back up what I’m gonna try and do is dump some water down inside there and see if it will float up to the top for me. Sometimes it will float right up when the line is filled.
If it’s light enough. I’ve seen it with pieces of plastic and such. It’s full now
but nope it’s not going to float up there for me but if it was like a plastic toothpick or something like that sometimes you can get it to float up.

So what I will have to do is just run this through the drain cycle for just a second and its gonna shoot water up and all but I’ve got to shoot that out of there.

Anyway I will come back to that later I just wanted to show you guys a bunch of stuff with dishwashers. Sometimes these 04:02 the spring for this gets broken off, often they come off and you can separate the two halves of the door and than reset the spring, it’s a little tricky but you just gotta get a place, to find, to reset that spring latch to. Sometimes it takes a little bit of an adjustment to get it.

Let’s see. This one’s working ok. Well it is not very strong so this one looks like possibly the spring has come off because it should only open automatically when it gets to the right point. Yeah this one is definitely broken. So that needs to be reworked to reset the spring.

What else can I show you?

04:47 Sometimes the impeller will get stuck. Dishwashers, there is four screws that hold the bottom trim plate on and each type of impeller is a little bit different. This particular model has like a fan connected to it and you can just turn the fan blades to unstick the impeller.

Let me remove these four screws. Other kinds you will have to use like a screwdriver,like two screwdrivers, and kind of wedge it against the
motor impeller in order to free up the impeller. You just kind of keep turning it until it gives. You’ll feel it be like really tough for a bit
and than all of a sudden it will move really easy.

This is probably going to be a little nasty in here. Got our sound insulation here keeping the noise out or in.

The impeller, if you had turned the dishwasher on and you hear like a humming but it’s not kicking on, that’s usually your impeller stuck.

Make sure you turn the power off and than reach right back here. And I don’t know if you can really see it that well but let me see if I can get my
flashlight going here to give you guys a lookie loo.

Put you inside there a little bit and I don’t know if you can see the fan blades there but I’m going to turn them with my other hand. Anyway sometimes if they were like really hard to turn at first and than it will just give and it will spin freely. It should spin nice and freely and that is how you can unstick those if it was stuck.

Other kinds you’ll see the impeller shaft right here and you’ll be able to turn it.

Anyway that is a little bit about dishwashers there. Some of the most common things you will come across maintenance wise!

Jan

2013

Fridge Not Cooling ~ First Thing To Check For Blog

00:13 Got A fridge not cooling here
00:15 and you can hear the compressors kicked on
00:19 but you can hear one of the first things to check for is that the fan is not kicking on
00:25 so it could just be that the fan is stuck
00:28 so
00:29 what we’re gonna do is remove this ice tray deal
00:33 just by pushing up here
00:36 and sliding this out and there is two screws on the back that hold the fan channel in
00:42 so I’m gonna remove these two screws here
00:46
00:51 and this is one of the first things to check for when you’ve got a fridge that is not cooling
00:56 check for a stuck fan motor first
01:00 now that may not be the only thing going on
01:04 lift this fan channel up here and slide it out
01:07 ok
01:10 and there is our fan, you can see it’s not spinning very fast
01:14 It should be spinning faster than that
01:18 And chances are what it is is that it is too close
01:23 the fan blade is too close
01:24 see how it was rubbing against the back
01:27 and that’s why it wasn’t spinning very fast
01:29 so what I’m gonna do is pull that forward a little bit more
01:36 it’s probably a little bit safer to
01:39 turn the power off first but I’m just gonna get this done
01:44 ok
01:45 I took the whole thing off there
01:48 anyway place this on and now it’s out a little bit more and doing what it should now that was keeping the air from being able to blow down into the fridge and the freezer wasn’t circulating the air like it should
02:13 behind the fan channel on this side it’s got an adjustment here
02:14 you usually don’t have to adjust these to much
02:17 but if you wanted your freezer to be colder or needed your freezer to be colder you can adjust this dial by pulling out and turning that, each model has it’s own peculiarities. Ok now that we’ve got the fridge fixed theoretically what we need to check for is
02:34 under the pan to see if there is any ice there which there probably is and the freezer drain line is probably clogged
02:40 The way we can tell this is if we’ve got water dripping
02:43 down here
02:44 which we do so were going to need to clear that out
02:47 but I will put that on the next video.

Jan

2013

How To Stop Vertical Blinds From Dragging On The Ground

00:08 OK Here is a quick one.

00:10 You’ve got some vertical blinds that are dragging on the ground.

00:13 You could trim them down but if it’s a matter of them not being even

00:17 what you can do just as a quick deal

00:19 is lift

00:24 as long as your

00:26 brackets are mounted in the studs.

00:30 What you can do is lift

00:32 the blinds and

00:35 bend the bracket up just a hair

00:38 to get the

00:41 slats off the ground.

00:53 Than if you need to you can put like a wedge underneath

00:58 to lift it up enough so the

01:02 blinds all clear.

01:06 anyway i’m gonna trim that wedge down make it little bit better

01:09 under there so it’s a little more

01:12 secured in there.

01:15 And we will be good to go. So now I just cut off a smaller piece of the wedge.

01:20 And anchored it back there

01:22 so it’s not going to come out on us

01:24 and that’s enough to lift the blinds up off the ground. Keep them from dragging. :o)