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Today we've got an exhaust fan that we're replacing.
The whole thing is out of balance.
Should be a like for like replacement so the crane should be here
in about a half an hour.
I've got someone downstairs
trying to find power so we can isolate it and shut it off.
And we're going start disassembly.
We're trying to get everything ready as fast as possible.
So the crane is in and out of here.
So I'm all disconnected. The hinges are disconnected.
We might use the same hinges.
I don't have a super hinge for this one.
Electrical is pulled aside.
We may use the same disconnect switch because I like how it's external, but
it just depends.
But yeah, this guy is ready, so I'm waiting for another tech right now.
I have a couple of guys downstairs unloading the new
exhaust fan in the trailer and then one's going to come up here.
We didn't get a giant crane, so it's not going to set it right here.
But these things are super light, so we're just going to carry it
to the edge of the roof because the crane is going to be setting up over here.
Yeah, and that's what we're at again.
It's all about being ready and being prepped.
Everybody knows what they're doing.
Everybody has a job, you know, and they're going to do their job.
And then that makes this whole process go smooth.
All right.
I was a little concerned because this fan is not identical now.
I trusted the fact that I was told it was right.
And you got to be careful about that.
So the model number on this one has a 13 in it,
which typically indicates the wheel diameter.
This one has a 15 in it, but the wheel,
for whatever reason, is actually bigger on this one.
So I'm going to go ahead and go with it.
So the height is taller and the width is the same, even though it says
13 on there, which I always thought was the wheel size, but maybe it's not.
The wheel size is actually a 15, I believe, and it's the same as this,
but it's actually taller than this one.
So this fan should be moving more air.
So we may have to adjust accordingly, but regardless, we're going to go with it.
The voltage is right, the horsepower is right,
the phase is right, the curve is identical.
So we're good to go. We're going to keep proceeding.
We're going to lift off this one right now.
So we got the fan and it looks like it's going to work.
We're going to end up
replacing some conduit, probably cutting it a little bit shorter.
But yeah, it's looking good so far.
We're going to put the disconnect right here.
conduit comes out of the disconnect into the breather hole
and then around the fan into the motor.
So that way there's plenty of room to pull the motor out to service it if need be.
All right.
We got three people tag team in this guy right now.
We're going down to check phase rotation.
If you're smart about these, don't
try to pull the motor and pull the whole bracket out.
And then it works perfect to hold in there while you're wiring it up.
Now we're going to check phase rotation, make sure that's right.
And if that's correct, then we'll drop it back
down, tighten it up, and then we're going to adjust the speed as best as possible.
And then they'll have to get test and balance out to dial it in.
Perfect.
But we matched up the pulleys and everything, so it should be relatively
the same, even though that wheel is a little different though.
But they said that this fan is the equivalent.
So test and balance.
I'll have to play with that a little bit,
but I'll dial it in as best as possible and check current and stuff.
All right.
So our motor is low voltage because this is a two 3460.
Okay, so we're running about 211 volts.
So according to the low voltage guy right here,
brown, orange and black, get wiring added together right there.
Brown, orange, black. Then
purple and red.
Go to line one right here, purple, red line one, then tan and white.
Go to line two, tan and white, line two.
And then line three would be pink and blue.
And then it actually turns out to be blue.
So we're going to test the rotation real quick.
As long as the rotations correct, we'll take them up,
get them push back in there and put the fan together and start it up.
Okay.
So we're going around, we got everything in here,
but we're double tightening everything.
So we got the tension set, but the pulley is not lined up correctly.
So we're going to lift up this one, tighten that,
and then we're double tightening everything.
I had a wheel come loose on one of these in like
a year or two years ago, and I don't want that to happen.
So we're just double tightening everything, just double checking.
And you can see the way that we ran the conduit.
It goes around
and loops back in steel tight and then that way we can pull
the motor out to troubleshoot it.
So that way it's not too short because it's there's nothing
worse than getting in here, not being able to service the motor. Right.
So I put my information right here.
This is the relay is 4.4.
We haven't turned it on yet.
Well, we know the phase rotations. Correct.
We also had to adjust the motor pulling
and the key way wasn't getting engaged properly.
So we had to pull the set, screw out, flip the key way over, push it down further.
The way that it was the key way was sticking out a bunch and the set screw
is actually going underneath the key way as it came from the factory.
So I always want to double check that stuff.
You know, stuff happens.
And then last but not least,
we're going to double tighten
these guys right here
because this is actually what I had come loose one time
and it was a nightmare to get it back on by myself.
So we're going to double tighten that.
We've got the cables put on.
We ended up moving the grease trough to the other side because of the orientation.
But yeah, everything's good so far.
We, we used the same style hinges, but we use the new ones.
I like using super hinges on these, but you know, we didn't have that today.
So it is what it is.
All right. It is running in the right direction.
We are running under current.
We're allowed to
run 4.4 and we're running 3.4.
So we're good on that.
So we're going to turn it off again.
One thing that I did do now, this will eventually come off,
but I marked the rotation on the pulleys for the next guy
just so that way he doesn't have to struggle. Right.
There's a couple of marks saying what direction they should go.
There's also a big sticker down here, but over time, it'll disappear.
But these will disappear over time too.
But yeah, that's it.
We're going to put the cover on, turn it back on,
give it to them, and then test and balance can come in
and adjust the speed and balance it out if need be.
So they have room to increase the speed if they have to.
Now, normally, if the fan was like for like it would be super simple.
Just match up the pulleys and you're good to go.
But because the wheels are different size,
the test and balance is going to have to adjust that.
So I don't have the tools to do it.
So, all right.
We are all done plenty of slack in the conduit.
Everything's cool.
Cables are secured and you can see like
I even secured this because I didn't want it to get caught on anything.
So I just put a fender washer and a tech screw just to hold it in place.
All right, that's all good.
It's like we got a screw.
You always want to clean up your messes, do a walk through when you're done.
Did the same thing over here with the extra slack.
Hinges are good.
So we're going to wrap this one up.
It's kind of frustrating because and again,
it's all learning lessons or whatever things that we can improve on.
But when when I ask someone, hey, is that exhaust fan correct?
And they say, Yes, that's correct.
I expect people
to be 100% correct when they say that.
Right. I it's it's it's frustrating.
You don't just stop at the cube 180 that's a green heck
fan cube 180 is like the model, but there can be different variations on that
and you have to verify.
So I would have appreciated had we said, you know, yeah, it's
the numbers here aren't the same.
And then we dug into it.
It all worked out and it all ended up being okay.
But I, this is why I have trust issues.
So we had a discussion about this and we worked through it and we just,
you know, I let everybody know, like, look, when you guys verify
something, you need to be 100% accurate when you say it is correct,
because there's a lot of variables
that can screw everything up on these jobs.
I mean, you know, we've got three guys here.
We've got a crane, we've got a trailer.
There's a lot of money involved
for us to get to the job and realize that the exhaust fan is not correct.
That is very frustrating.
So it all ended up being okay,
you know, no harm, no foul, you know, everything worked out.
But we, you know,
did bring to the customer's
attention that they need to get test and balance involved.
Whether or not they'll actually do that, I don't know.
But, you know, that's at their discretion.
You know, they get to choose to do that or not.
It's always best.
You know, we always recommend whenever we do exhaust fan change outs or
an AC change outs that they get the test and balance company involved.
If you guys don't know what the test and balance company as they are
technicians that are specialized in measuring airflow and especially
in weird situations like exhaust hoods and different things like that.
I've always wanted to get test and balance certified.
And it's not just a certification, though, right?
Because I mean, I can measure airflow.
I'm not you know, I don't do it all the time.
So it's going to take me a lot longer than a test and balance or a tab technician.
But there's also specialized tools, okay?
Special flow hoods in the situation of an exhaust fan.
It's not an actual flow hood.
It's actually the Menominee from the flow hood and a special
attachment for the
nanometer that you, you, you put up against the hood filters to measure the
velocity of air moving across and then you have to do some calculations.
It's a whole process, but regardless,
it's always best to when you when you write up quotes and we always
tell customers when we're changing air conditioners, exhaust fans,
you need to get a test and balance company involved
after we are done because that is not what we do.
We're mechanical contractors.
We go in there, we change the fan,
and then you get the test and balance company to come in and do it after.
So it's always something
that I've wanted to get involved in, but it's just not something.
I mean, maybe one day or something, who knows?
You know, I am doing a little bit of research and getting very
just preliminary research into the building science
side of things with my own home
HVAC replacement, but again, similar tools but different process.
So we we got the fan installed in all went well
but as you're doing these jobs
you know at the start of the video it's so important that you have a plan when you
when you discuss that plan with everybody on the job site
so everybody knows what they're responsible to do.
I had one technician.
His job was to stay downstairs.
He hooked up the exhaust fan.
He unhooked the exhaust fan.
He loaded the old one in the trailer, you know.
So his job was to do that.
I had another technician that was floating between downstairs and upstairs,
so he went and helped the guy downstairs,
lifted the new exhaust or the old exhaust fan into the trailer.
Right?
Then he came upstairs and helped me lift the exhaust fan across the roof.
I stayed on the roof the whole time.
I directed the crane, you know.
So it's all about teamwork
and everybody knowing their jobs, if they just walk up to a job like this
and everybody's just running around, it just makes things more confusing.
And when you have an aerial crane involved, it's so important
that you are safe.
You know, you have your jobs laid out, you have your safety meeting.
Everybody knows where they should be.
And again, it sounds so silly, but every single crane lift that we do,
I remind everybody, do not put yourself in a dangerous situation.
Do not walk under the load.
Stay away from the load as much as possible.
You know, the crane.
And then I'll even discuss like I'm going to have the crane swing this way
and out this way and over here so people know, like, hey, stay out of that area,
you know?
So it's just about safety.
We want everybody to go home.
We we want everybody to be safe.
And we want that crane out of there as soon as possible.
Okay.
So discuss doing the job, giving everybody
their their, you know, things that they need to do.
And then it comes to starting the exhaust fan up again.
Everybody needs a job, you know, instead of multiple people
trying to do multiple things.
You know, I put one person wiring the motor,
one person, you know, doing the hinges, one person doing it, you know.
So it's just it's very smooth when everybody has a job.
Okay.
So in this situation to a couple of things I wanted to cover was
the disconnect switch.
Now what I ended up doing was that's a green heck exhaust fan.
Green Hex sends an internal three phase switch that mounts inside the fan.
I really like that external disconnect switch that was on the old fan.
So what we actually did was took the new three phase switch
just the inside and we put it in that existing
squared D switch box because it just accepts a three
phase switch and it just has a mechanism that opens and closes it.
So they did get a new three phase switch.
They we just used the old housing and then we did new conduit.
That's another thing too is whenever I'm changing exhaust fans, if I have power off
to the exhaust fan, typically the conduit is cracked and old and broken.
We change the conduit, okay? And then we ended up
shortening the conduit because it was way too long anyways.
Now I'm not a huge fan of the hinges that come with those green heck fans,
but we did not have my favorite style of Hinge,
which is accompanied by a company called Omni Containment.
It's called a super hinge. I have no affiliation with them.
I just really like their product.
But we didn't have any of those, so we had to use the fan hinges
that came with the fan and you know, they work.
It's okay. It's just not my favorite thing.
But but other than that, everything went good
because everybody knew what they needed to do, right?
And we all worked together
myself.
Whenever we do these jobs, I always schedule my guys,
you know, whatever time I scheduled them to be there, I myself
and this is just how I work.
I'm usually there anywhere from an hour to a half an hour before everybody else.
I like to get to job sites now.
I typically don't like I had another guy pick up the trailer, right.
So I went by the shop in the morning.
I made sure, you know, the exhaust fan was loaded in the trailer.
It was already there. But I just just verified.
Went through the office, made sure there was
I had all the electrical conduit and different things that I needed
and then I get to the jobs early.
Usually that's just how I work.
I'm a person that has to be places early.
I just it's I think it's.
Because when I was. A kid, my family was always late everywhere
and it just messed with my head.
So now I just can't handle being late.
So I always like to get to the job before everybody walk the job, get things
prepped, you know?
So that way when they get there, it's already time.
Like, I'm ready to go, you know, like, Hey, okay, this is what we're going to do.
And that's another thing too.
The way that we work in the way that I appreciate my guys to work.
This may not work for everybody,
but when you arrive at the job site, it's work time.
It's not time to wake up and and stretch it.
No, no.
You the moment you get into your vehicle and you're driving, it's go time, okay?
We're there to work.
So I make sure everybody understands that, you know,
when you pull up on that job, it's go time.
It's not time to, like, mosey out and wake up.
And no, like no when we're there, were there, we're on the customers dime, right?
They're paying us.
We're there to work. Okay.
So, you know,
I encourage everybody, you know, you need to wake up early for work or whatever.
You need to stretch.
You need to drink your coffee that's, you know, coffee.
Or for me, I drink coffee when I'm driving to the job site.
But the moment that I get to the job site, it's not like, okay, you know,
got to kind of just wake up and know that's not how things work.
We're there, we're working, boom, you know?
So, but yeah, that's pretty much it.
There's these aren't too difficult.
It's just following the steps.
And if you follow the proper steps, if you think logically
when you're doing these jobs, if you're every time I do
one of these jobs, I'm trying to be efficient, right.
Okay.
Crane is going to lift up the new fan first.
Right. But we already have the other fan to the edge of the roof.
We're thinking ahead.
We're being prepared.
We're trying to be as efficient as possible.
Give the customers the best bang for their buck.
Okay.
I really appreciate you making it to the end.
As I always say,
it is so awesome and so humbling to have the support from everybody.
I am just dumbfounded that you guys, after we're going on like five years,
I think of these videos
and it's still crazy to me that you guys like to watch these videos.
This is just the way that my brain works.
That's literally all these videos and just sharing the way that my brain works.
And it's still so humbling.
I'm so thankful for all of you. Okay.
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