HVAC GUY LIVE!

How do you like this new high-tech stuff with the countdown and the music? Music and, uh... Hey, I'm just playing with some of the tech tools I have here. I do have somebody who may drop in a little bit, but I wanted to talk about the video today. Okay. Okay. Because I was in a hurry, I misdiagnosed a TXV, and I wanted So, today I, um, to go over what you need to check to make sure what's up from Ohio. It's the fat HVAC guy. I wanted to go over what to check to make sure you know it's a TXV instead of just being low on Freon. Okay, there's a lot of things to measure your high pressure, your low pressure, your superheat, your sub cooling, your temp drop, the temp rise coming out of the condenser. And almost all of those things go down when it's low on refrigerant except one. And that one thing is the superheat is going to go up. So the things that go down include the sub cooling. So one thing I wanted to mention, if you're checking a TXV, check your superheat and sub cooling because if it has a restriction in the TXV, it's also going to have a high superheat. But if the charge is correct, that sub cooling Should either be close to normal or high. It's not going to go down. And that's the main thing you need to check to make sure you don't do what I did today. Just check pressures and look at it icing at the TXV and diagnose the TXV. And today, well, the other day I did that because I was in a hurry and I made a mistake. But I knew I had been in a hurry and I knew. That there was possibly not. Low refrigerant. So I did what I did. I recovered all the refrigerant and I immediately knew that thing had been low because I only got like 11 ounces out of it. Well, Breckin Norris, the decision whether or not you go residential or commercial in the beginning may not be up to you. I know even though I was going through tech school in the beginning, I was a duct helper. I just had to work my way into the service department and that included commercial and residential where I was working. Thank you, Texas Guy. I'm glad y'all like the channel. These live streams are going to become more of a common thing. I don't know if we're going to move to Wednesdays or we're going to keep them to Sundays. Yes, Xavier, I do hope everybody's staying busy. If you're not busy this time of year, something may be wrong, but you know something. I'll be honest, I've been in contact with business owners. Not just throughout South Georgia, but throughout the whole country. And it does seem like companies are suffering compared to what they were doing last year. And I know in my case, I've lost some business to window units or very cheaply installed, cheap, like 12,000 BTU mini splits or something. And it's hard to compete with some maintenance guy buying this equipment and installing it. The whole install for $1,000, it's really hard to compete with that because we have overhead, we have insurance, we have workers comp, we have our vehicle to pay for. We have, I mean, it's a lot. So it's really hard to compete with stuff like that. Texas guy looking for HVAC apprentice position. Everyone says they're too busy. Keep trying. Keep trying. Bada, is that question for me? Do you have your EPA? So sales and service, about 20%, Barry Hedges up there. I have seen, in fact, there were a couple of big companies here in town. By big, I mean 20 or more employees that were riding two technicians to a vehicle all the way up to, I don't know, like four or five weeks ago. So I know that they were. Slow compared to what they expected to have. And if the guy that I invited to join me is able to make it, he's somebody worth talking to. Very young guy in the trades, and I wanted to talk to him. I mean, he just did something that I never would have done at 19. I mean, he seems like he's devoted to the trades, and I wish I had had that devotion early on in my life. I didn't get it until. 35 or 40. And then I was all in. I mean, you couldn't stop me. But if I had had that devotion early on in my life, wow. Can you imagine where we'd be now? I probably wouldn't be working anymore. Yes, you're right. Mark Morales, regardless if work comes in, we still have to pay it. Yes, there's, I mean, everything. And there's really frustrating things that I've been going through lately as business owners. If y'all are watching this. The frustrating part, you have to renew your insurance every year. And every time you renew your insurance, you have to send out copies of certificate of insurance to everybody you're doing business with. And now these. Several of the people that I'm doing business with use a third-party company to verify your certificate of insurance, your license, your drive, everything except mother's social security number. And it's really frustrating because I submit the information over and over and over, and it takes them so long to actually get it into their system. that I found out like two months later I'm not getting paid by these people because they still haven't entered the information. That's my rant on that. I just wish we could just send a COI to a property manager and that would be it but no we have to jump through a lot of hoops. I even did one a few years ago that required a urinalysis every once in a while and I was fine with that because I want them to know I'm drug free but Still, I mean, there's a lot of stuff you got to do just to be able to do business with some of these bigger companies. Oh, what's up? Hey, guys, we have Ewop with us. Hold on just a second. I'm going to resize so that y'all can get him just a second. He was able to make it. Apparently, he's in another part of the country. And I did not realize that he wasn't on the East Coast. So I sent him an invite for 7 o'clock. And where are you, man? I am in Southern California, so it's a three-hour, you're ahead of me, yeah. I didn't realize that. For some reason, I thought you were on the East Coast. No, yeah, you're good. No, yeah, West Coast. West Coast. Yes, sir. Is my fan loud? Can you hear it? Just a little bit, but it's okay. You sure? It's okay. I can turn it off. It's fine. Okay. All right. Awesome. So you just came in from work, right? I just came in from work, yes. Yeah, I did an install right now. Well, let me ask you, I got to tell everybody, you're 19, right? Yes. And you just bought a work van? I did, yes. Okay, what are your intentions with this? Are you working with somebody or are you intending to work for yourself? So as of right now, I'm working for somebody. I'm working for a company here local to me. My intention of buying the van is to start, uh, my own, my own company, my own business to work for myself. So the idea is in, uh, soon as I get my contractor's license, uh, maybe, you know what, not as soon as I get it, maybe in a few years, two years or three years. Um, but as you know, obviously as soon as I can, but, um, but yeah, that is my plan to work for myself. Well, what do you have to do in California to get a contractor's license? Because in Georgia, you got to work for somebody else for five years. You can cut it to four and a half if you go to tech school. Yeah. So it sounds like you're trying to jump in it real quick. So what do you have to do to get your contractor's license? Yeah. So here in California, it's the C20 license. So what we have to do here is four years of experience. And then I believe four sign offs of different contractors, maybe more, but it's around there. So yeah, the what I need is another year and a half of experience, if I'm not mistaken, and then I'm eligible for that. And then of course, the sign offs for the different contractors. All right. You may have missed it, but one of the things I was saying is that if I had had the focus and determination that you got at your age when I was 19, I was telling them I probably wouldn't be working anymore. I'd probably already be retired. Oh, that's pretty awesome. And that's awesome to hear because that's definitely an awesome goal for sure. Um, well. I don't know if I'm going to be the kind of person that can retire because I enjoy what I do. I'm going to want to get out and do it at least every once in a while. I'm so used to getting up and getting out. And honestly, I could retire now if I wanted. Yeah. But I like getting out and doing what I do. I still got a lot of good left in me and I enjoy it. Yeah. Once you find that door for the trade, I feel like it's kind of hard to get out. Because me, myself, when I think about the future, I feel like I'd be the same way. I like what I do, so I feel like it'd be harder for me to get out. I'd still like to be out in the field. I don't want to get out of the trades. I mean, I was offered an office job in Central Florida, well, Central South Florida, as a service manager. Okay. Probably about a year ago. And the pay was great. But I'm like, man, I just enjoy my work. I like being in control of my own life. You know what I'm saying? Set my own schedule and stuff like that. So I would have to give all that up. And so there was no way I was going to accept that. I couldn't even entertain it, but they were trying real hard. Were they? They see the value in you for sure. But man, so you and... For some reason, I thought you were up in New York or something. No. Yeah, I'm out here in Cali. So forgive me for sending you the invite for 7 o'clock on my end. I didn't realize you're going to have to run. No worries. You're all good. But yeah, I got a lot of exciting things for the van I just bought. So I've been in the process of actually upfitting it, which is like one of the exciting parts of the van, upfitting it. So I was able to get some stuff sent out, and it's been a lot of work, though, putting it all together. Oh, my gosh, especially in this heat, but I'm trying to get it all together. Yeah, it's awesome. The van I have, it had nothing in it. Oh, really? No shelves, none of that pack-out stuff. There was nothing. It was just bare naked panel van, and I decided to put regular shelves on one side and then do the pack-out on the other. Nice. I've thought about, I kind of need the shelves because you need those for heavier stuff like motors and stuff like that. Yeah. But if I could find a way to do it all pack out, maybe. Yeah. I don't know. You know, Milwaukee is coming out with their shelving system. Do you see that? I did, but I feel like it's a bad use of space because. I mean, you can only stack so many pack outs in there and there's all this space around the pack out that's not being used and then you don't have like a heavy duty shelf to put, you know, a 20 pound motor on or four of them side by side. So I'm not buying into that new system. Yeah, yeah, I'm thinking the same thing too, because I feel like there is some space that, you know, that you lose when you get that for sure. But yeah, we'll see. They're talking about sending it out to me, but I might do a transition, like, I don't know, I might take the shelves I put in. out and then put that in for a minute see how i like it and then if not i'll just put the other ones in but i like the fact that you can slide out the you know the little shelves to access the pack out but we'll see if how the space looks like you know yeah you be careful putting this stuff in your van i've had i've got really heavy shelves and i got a lot of heavy stuff on them and i've had you know how the Part of the framing for the body of the van is made out of the same metal as the body, but it's just got like a, it's just like bubbled over. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Well, I tried to attach my shelves to some of that and my bolts were pulling through it. Oh, really? Yes, because just a little bit of movement over time, it'll develop a crack. And I've had to go back in and reinforce things, put giant washers behind it. And I'm still not sure I've got it done right. Right. Jeez, that sounds like a headache. Gabe asks, what van buying mistakes would you guys avoid? Well, first thing that comes to mind for me, Kurt, is I've done a lot of research. And I've even had some people comment on my purchase that I just did. I think it's just researching the vans because there's only a few out there different ones and just uh Looking into like the engine and transmission and apparently uh what i've seen for my van Uh, which I knew before getting into it is it typically has some problems with the ProMaster with the transmission That's what i've heard. Um, but I feel like at the same time Kurt A lot of, every van, every vehicle is going to have issues with the transmission. It depends on how you drive and stuff like that. I feel like it's a matter of when it goes out, right? Or what do you think? Well, my last van, I was T-boned by somebody and they totaled my van. Oh, wow. So I was working out of my truck and I was, you know, looking at local car lots to see if they had any work vans. And I drove past one and I saw that great big old Transit sitting out there. And I turned around and bought it right there on the spot. I mean, I needed something, and it was there. It was used, but it only had 13,000 miles on it, so I took it. Nice. Oh, yeah, that's low miles for sure. And I love it. I love it. I can, I can. I'm 6'1". I can stand straight up in there, and I still have a couple inches over my head. It's got plenty of, I got stuff in there only during the winter that I keep on there all year round. I mean, I even take stuff off every once in a while. Like I had some jaws, press fitting jaws that I was not using and they're really heavy. A pack out full of those things is, I don't know what, a hundred pounds, 150 pounds. Yeah. I'm thinking I'm just hauling that stuff around all over the place and I took it out. Nice, yep. Yeah, your van's super long, too. It has tons of space, yeah. I don't have any ladders on the top of my van because I use a multi-position ladder for almost everything, and if I need an extension ladder or a 10-foot step ladder or something like that, it's sitting in the back. I just go to my car and ride in the back and go to the job. That's so awesome. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's the route I'm going is Adirax for mine. Cause I'm mine's not as long as yours. Oh yeah. They got some nice options out there. Some that will bring it over to the side and you don't have to climb halfway up your van to secure it. I mean, there's some nice options out there. Yeah, there is most definitely. I'm trying to go back. There was a comment. Here we go. I think this is it. He was asking about the electrical troubleshooting. I just got to say you know for me it just came a time where everything just started to click into place. I began to understand low voltage and there were a couple little hints along the way that helped me with high voltage. Y'all will see that I almost never look at the schematic. I mean it's not that I don't know how to read them, I do. I just don't need them. In a residential application, I have seen some package units on top of. commercial buildings where if you don't have schematics you're lost but most of the time it it just makes sense and you get to a point in your work where everything just starts to fall into place and you understand what you're looking at you've seen it before and it all just I don't know you'll get there and that's for Christian. There my buddies Jake and Adrian are going to be I'm going to be doing the AC nights tomorrow night. Yeah, I saw that. Are you going to be there too? I don't think I'm going to make it. Kurt's a busy man. Well, I'm trying to focus more on being able to do stuff like this. Yeah. You know, and work on my own channel. I mean, I enjoy doing the channel. I enjoy doing the videos. I enjoy the interaction. Its own is. Like I said in one of my previous shows, I was kind of starting to experience a little bit of burnout. And then when I started filming my work and putting it up on YouTube, it gave me a little more sense of purpose. Like I'm doing this for somebody else, not just for me. And it helped with the burnout. It helped it a lot. That's good. That's awesome. So you're going to be focusing more on your channel to kind of get rid of that burnout. I mean, the burnout, as far as just filming my stuff and putting it on YouTube. That helps with that. It does with me because I'm not just sharing how to do something. Sometimes I'm sharing, like today, something where I had messed up or misdiagnosed, and this is me making it right. That was part of my video today. But, yeah, doing the video work does help with the burnout. It gives you a little bit of interaction. If you're like me, I don't socialize with the other people in the trade. In my city, and I would recommend for a lot of people that that's probably a good idea because some of those guys are going to take you out to bars. Some of them are doing, they're smoking, they're doing meth on the job. So it's just the honest truth. It happens. You can't get away from it. So for me, I've just never socialized with any of them, not the good ones or the bad ones. So the community I have. on YouTube seems to be a much more healthy community to me and I enjoy interacting with them. Does that make any sense? That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Yep. Our online community. Yeah, it's great. A hundred percent. I think the community you've built and I feel like every HVAC, like, you know, all of us on social media, they have their own community and it's awesome to be able to talk to them. You know, they'll ask you for advice, but then, like, when you have more people to rely on, you can ask them for advice, too, which is pretty awesome. Yeah. Let me see this comment. Does anyone ever refuse you to film your work? No. So we Well, yeah. There was one I filmed, but I later asked not to publish any of it, and it was a cleaning of an evaporator coil. It was because they had kids, they didn't want anybody to know. You know how my videos are. I don't show where I am. I don't show addresses. I try not to show faces, but I respected his wishes. That's only happened to me one time. I didn't publish anything in that video, and it was going to be a good video, so I was a little upset about it, but if they ask me not to, I won't. Yeah. Yeah, I haven't had that happen to me yet. No one has ever refused to not be recorded or in a video, surprisingly. Well, I try not to show people people's faces in their house. Yeah. Does that make any sense? Because what I'm trying to avoid is any. I have this idea that I'm secretly recording people in their house. Yeah, yeah. So that's, I try to stay away from that. If you see anything, you might see their feet. Nobody's going to know who it is, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. And sometimes I do tell them, hey, I film my work. If you hear me talking, that's what I'm doing. And 90% of the time, people are okay with it. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of people think it's for, like, insurance purposes or something like that. They'll ask me, are you recording for insurance purposes? I'm like, no. I'll tell them I do videos and stuff. Where do you put your camera and your POV shots? I put it on my chest. Yeah, so I use, I think, one of the magnet mounts that you use, and I just put it on my chest. Are you doing the same thing, or do you switch it up? Yeah, I'm trying to take it off my chest more often, set it down to get a more stable shot. Um, I, I've realized that some of my shots, like when I move my arms or something, the camera will shake and the optic image stabilization can do great work, but if it shakes too much, it's going to pick it up. Yeah, it does. So, um, so I am trying to set the camera down and give a stable shot and do that more often. Yeah, that's good. I was listening to one of the podcasts, HVAC Nights, Kurt, and you, I forget what was happening, but you were about to go off on a subject. You were going to go off right there, and then the live stream ended. I think someone lost Wi-Fi. Adrian lost Wi-Fi, but it was the funniest thing ever, man. I forget what you guys are talking about, man. Saludos, compadre, from Argentina. How about that? Do you speak Spanish? A little bit, not a lot, man. Okay. I'm a no-solve-o kid. No. I'm starting Oh, word. I've heard that before, yeah. I know what a no-solve-o is. I get called out in my comments. Haha, um I was at a Hispanic house today. um I recognized that it was a Hispanic name, and the lady's daughter was out there to interpret when I showed up. now. I just turned around and said, if you want to speak in Spanish, we can speak in Spanish. That's fine. And that lady's face just lit up. She was happy that she could communicate with me. Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome. What nationality are you, Kurt? I'm born and bred American. Okay, nice. So how did you pick up Spanish? You just, like, dedicated time to learning it, or? Well, first, I took two years in high school, but that don't teach you a whole lot, as you can imagine. And... I took, well, before I got into college, I was working construction with Hispanics. And during that time, I was single. I was living basically with them. I was studying my tail off, reading dictionaries like you would not believe. So I was able to put into practice everything I was learning. It's like I was... Knee deep into the culture, the Hispanic culture, and everything. I was learning everything I could. And then when I got back into college at Ohio University, I took three years of advanced courses. All I had to do was just take a test. And they passed me on all three years and gave me credit for three years of Spanish. Nice. So I studied a lot. I put forth a lot of effort. And of course, you know, I got to give credit to the The majority were Mexicans, but people from all South America and Cuba and whatnot did help me learn my Spanish. I mean, they were more than willing to help me. That's awesome. It's always good to know so you can communicate with Spanish-speaking customers, clients. That's awesome. Yeah, it can be funny sometimes. Yeah. . There's this one particular coffee shop I like to prank. Yeah. And I think that's what I'm trying to do. . Yeah. . Yeah. I've done it so much, they know who it is. . Yeah. Okay. . Yeah. I'll pull it to the drive-thru, and I'll do something like, . . Yeah. Orale, pues, wey, yo tengo hambre, que tiene que hacer. . Yeah. . Yeah. . Yeah. Oh, my goodness. . Yeah. . Yeah. I can hear them laughing over the speaker. . Yeah. . They know who it is. Yeah. Yeah. And then I drive up and look, and then I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about. It wasn't me. Thank you. That's too funny. They know it was me, though. Yeah, that's funny. Well, Mark, that's probably the truth. The first things you learn are all the bad words. What's up? I've been called so many different things. A huevo, a bolillo. A bolillo is like a white piece of bread, but because I was the same color as this bread, they called me a bolillo. I've never heard that one before. That's funny. Of course, everybody knows gringo. I was a gringo. We can go on. There's another little thing that I do. Y'all don't know, I'm into CB radios and stuff. And there's this personality I have on the CB radio. And this guy's name is El Mexicano de Caroliquex. Okay. And Mexicles is like a slang term for Mexican. And I'm from South Carolina. And so the Caroliquex is kind of like a play on Carolina. I'm the Mexicano de Caroliquex. I'm like an honorary Mexican. I got you. I got you. That's funny. You know what? I ran into a lot of the people when we were at AHR and it was surprising to me the amount of Hispanics that are in the trades because where I live, there just aren't that many. There just really aren't. So to see the number of Hispanics that showed up at AHR, it was good to see. It was good to see. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. I know, I feel like around here too, there's a lot of Hispanics here where we're at, but I feel like every time I think of an HVAC tech, I don't know, I think of like a redneck guy with a red beard. I don't know, it's so funny. What do you mean? Somebody like Jake? Someone like Jake, yeah. I'm He does look the part, doesn't he? starting He does, he sure does. It's too funny. Oh, man. You know something? Jake's doing real good on his mid-roll ads and stuff that he's doing. Oh, yeah. to I mean, I don't know what they're paying him, but they ain't paying him enough because he's speak doing such a good job. I know. I see that. I'm like, to put that kind of time and dedication now. into a 15-second slot for somebody and don't do it. You gotta be paying good, man. I know. I feel like... Uh-huh. Go ahead. Go ahead, man. No, I was just going to say, I feel like I don't do as great as a job, especially compared to him, when it comes to pre-roll ads like that. But at the same time, it's like, I don't know, it's just a lot. It's a lot of work. Neil, I bought some of his socks, too. I do. I did. I used the Krauss code, and I bought 10 pairs of socks. I did. I mean, they're supposed to be good socks, so why not? I got it. I spent a high dollar on boots. I spent a lot of money on boots, so why not? I have some good socks. So far, so good, or were they comfortable? Yeah. Hold on a sec. Let me see this. You got them on right now. Bye now. Nice. I actually, they reached out to me when Jake jumped on the train with them, and I was like, guys, I know socks for me, that's a hard one to sell. You know, on my channel, I'm doing... pairs and stuff, if it's not specifically related to HVAC, it's hard for me to, it don't come natural for me. Jake just does such a great job with it. I don't, that's hard for me to do. I can't, I'm not a salesman. Yeah. He's a salesman for sure. That's awesome. Yeah. Jake, Jake is the perfect guy to represent some of these companies like Klein or the Vito, the Vito bags. I mean, he, they can't do any better than get somebody like him. Oh yeah, definitely. He puts a lot of time and it's quality, quality for sure. Speaking of sponsors and stuff, can you list off the, the, the companies that are either sponsoring you or sending you stuff to put in your videos? In my videos? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Okay, so my very first sponsor, actually, was Viper Refrigeration Technologies. They're the very first one I got sponsored by. And then another one would be Diversitech. Diversitech's a great, another great one. We all use them every single day. All Let me think. Another one would be Jobber, the CRM software. Yep. And then let me, I think, as of right now, right. Those three are like my main ones. Yeah. Those three are like the only three I have I'm having right now. Yeah. Well, we, we shared Diversitech. Yep. And all they really require of me is that I use their stuff in my videos. They don't even care if I put their logo at the beginning of the video. They just want, and that's a real easy app because it's quality stuff and I wouldn't, I would use it anyway. Exactly. Yeah. So I even ordered some thermostats of theirs so that I could be using their thermostats when I'm installing thermostats, the, um, the pro one, like the ProOne IQ thermostats. Those are great. Um, I like the big display. Um, I hadn't had any trouble with them. They're easy to, um, program. So I figured why not? And I've had a little bit of difficulty with the Honeywells. So it wasn't a big deal for me to swap the Honeywells. The Wi-Fi thermostats lose connections a lot of the time. The other thermostats, they can short and fail if they get... I've just had difficulties. I have a stack of warranty thermostats that I need to send back that I've never sent back. They're probably not good anymore because I haven't sent them back. I've probably got eight or nine of them. Really? Like Honeywell? All Honeywell? The T-series thermostats. Okay, yeah. You know what I'm talking about? Mm-hmm, yep. Most of them, T4s and T6s. Yeah. But I'm installing hundreds of them. It's not uncommon to have as many as I have fail in a period of like two years. That's true. Yeah, that's very true. Besides that, who else do you have as sponsors? All right, NuCalgon. And once again, they just want me to use their stuff. And I do put their logo at the beginning because I'm not always cleaning a coil or something. That's the easiest way to use their product is to use their foam gun and use their coil cleaner. Ryan is saying he's had troubles with the T-Tune. The T-Series thermostats have been a little bit problematic. I wish somebody would produce a, um... Just a run-of-the-mill thermostat that can do dehumidification that doesn't cost $300 because I could really put them to use. See, those are like the VisionPro 800s by Honeywell. Those things are expensive, and I've got an apartment complex full of them. Wow. Yeah, the one I'm looking at right now, the T10s are almost $300. The Honeywell T10s? Yeah. Hey, Kurt, you think you can lower the music a little bit for me? Music. I think, yeah, there you go. I don't know how. I think it's playing the countdown. That's what it is. Wait a minute. Is it? Yeah. I thought that was. There you go. Did it stop it? Yeah, it stopped it. You're good. Was everybody else hearing that? I'm not sure. They haven't said anything about it. I had no idea that was still going. It wasn't like the entire time. It just happened right now, I think. No, it's just me. They said they can't hear it. Okay, good. All right. Thank you. Good. Okay, so you said that Versitech, New Calgon. And then, what is the other one you said? That's the only ones that are paying me. Got you. Okay. Well, I take that back. I'm about to do a video on these power stations. I kind of got into doing videos on generators and stuff like that. And I have a power station video that I need to do that I'm going to get paid for. Nice. Um... It's not a great fit for the channel, but it is something that I use on my van. So it is kind of pertinent. I think it works. I know Adrian has done a video like that, and I plan on talking about it too later on. Because we use it in the van. It's pretty, I know, it helps, you know. Dude, I've got solar panels on top of my van. I saw that. And I power, and it's those fold-out, like you camping solar panels, you know what I'm talking about? Yep. You just can't submerge them in water. So I've got them strapped to the top of my van, and it's powering my power station, and it charges all my batteries. Um Yeah, as far as charging batteries, it's all done in solar now, everything. In fact, I'll... I'll use like a 12 amp hour battery to pull a vacuum, go stick it on the charger and it's charged back up by solar before I'm done with the job. Nice. Yeah, that's awesome. I'm definitely going to do that. And you know, you don't even have to do the solar with those things. If you can supply it with 12 volts and I can show you the way I have it in my van, I have a solenoid that energizes a battery terminal. It's like a relay. You run a battery terminal up to it, and then when you hit the key, it's got these, when the ignition is on, it powers the other side of the relay with the same amount of voltage as your battery terminal and the same amount of amperage. Okay. So, I tap off of that, and I can power the power station when I'm driving without solar panels if I want to. Okay. Nice. But the solar panels are all I need. I haven't had to use that at all. Awesome. Yeah, that's awesome. What do you think about the inverter as far as charging your power supply, power bank? I took my inverter completely out. Did you? The power station is all I need. Yeah. And, yeah, with the power station, you don't need an inverter. The only thing is, they're kind of big. I mean, they're about the size of a small recovery machine. Okay. So in a service van, that's a big ask to put that, you know what I'm saying? So in my van, I have room. I know the other vans, you may not have that kind of room. Yeah, that's true. Inverter for a rapid charger. That's what I need. Wait, I haven't tried their supercharger. That's what I want to try. Do you have that on you, Kurt? I have one, but it only does M18. Oh, I've seen that. Yeah, it only does M18. Oh, wait. I think they came out with a new one that does two M18 and two M12, if I'm not mistaken. And it has the magnetic back, so you can magnet, put it on magnets or something like that. Oh, that would be cool. I've got the rapid charger. I've just got the old rapid charger that has an M12 and M18 on it. Yeah. And that's really all I need. Oh, yeah. I'm not using anything Makita anymore. So I used to keep Makita batteries and I mean, I've got more batteries and stuff than I need on the van because I can charge them and have them charged in 45 minutes. Yeah, I've got all these backup batteries. That's awesome. Yeah. So like Mike said, he has an inverter for the rapid charger. For me, my inverter had to be, the end had to be running for my inverter to be running. I see. So I could only run the charger when I was driving down the road. But with the power station, even if you power it with power from, like, the ignition, even if you power it that way, you're charging your power station every time you crank up the vehicle. Yeah. And it holds that power in its batteries. You don't need an inverter. You could just, like, the power station I'm using now is the Predator 2000 of the ones that I have used. There's one right here. I've got it as an uninterrupted power source for my computer. Nice. Of the ones that I have, that one's the smallest. It takes up the least amount of space. It's just real convenient if you can find the room for something like that. That's true. Yeah, finding the room, that's like the only thing. And I need to plan it out as soon as I get everything for my van because even though I upgraded to a bigger van, I feel like I'm still limited on space. You just have to plan it all ahead of time. That is true. My first three vans were the Econolines, you know, the vans before the Transits, the Econolines, like an E250. Are they the smaller ones? Oh, yes. Well, probably about the size of the one that you bought. Okay. But they never made them in big versions like they do the Transits. I see. I see. And I bought three of those. And tricked them all out with some kind of inverter and ran wires back. And I had outlets in the front and in the back. Nice. I kind of enjoyed doing that little thing, hooking them up like that. It's fun. I became good at it. I know. That's what I'm seeing because I did my company van. I did all of it. Now I'm doing it for my van. It feels like I'm getting better at doing it. It's easier and then it becomes more enjoyable for sure. Yeah. It does. I enjoy it. It's exciting too. I'll tell you another thing about those inverters. The first few that I installed, I installed on the floor. Behind the seat, and I got to recommend you don't do that. Okay. Why is that? All the trash, all the coil cleaning fluid, all that vacuum pump oil that gets on the floor of your van, well, it's going to get on that inverter, too. Oh, that's true. Gotcha. So if you got a divider behind the seat, if you could lift it off the floor just a little bit, that would help. I'm glad you mentioned that. Well, I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one spilling vacuum oil in the van. That just happened to me like two days ago. And I'm like, crap. Sucks. I know it. I know it. All that stuff's going to be on your inverter if it's on the floor. Yep. Yep. That's crazy. I've actually, two of my vans that I bought were totaled. So. One of them, the guy rear-ended somebody, and somebody's T-boned me, but the guy who rear-ended somebody, we went and we had to go to the auto repair place to get everything off the van, and when I removed the inverter from under the seat, it was just caked in all this stuff. It was disgusting. That's when I decided I'd never put them on the floor again. Yeah. I mean, it was still working. I mean, it was one of the best. It was made by AIMS Power. But, man, it sure took some abuse. Jeez. So you know from experience. Yeah. Well, I'm probably going to give you time to at least go take a shower and get something to eat. And I'm going to cut it all short here. I've already had time to wash my tail from the Philippines. Really? How about that? That's crazy. Somebody said, don't spill Viper Bright. It eats up everything. Oof. Yeah, that stuff does. Yeah. That's like the heavy-duty stuff. Is that stuff you have to mix with water? Yeah. The little package? Yeah. Yeah. Crazy. I imagine some of these people are still working. Yeah, that's pretty crazy. What time is it in California? Out here, it's 4.49. So it wasn't too bad of a day for me. Huh? So you're doing one install a day? Um, for today, yes. So what's what it's been for tomorrow, though, I think we're doing a couple. We're doing three in total, but I think we're doing two tomorrow. Okay, I know. But it's it's picking up, which is good. I'm happy about it. So it but it's gonna start getting pretty busy. Well, dude, if you stay in busy making money, you're not spending money. Exactly. Yeah, that's so true. Well, guys, I'm going to go ahead and stick around a little bit, Ewok, but I'm going to go ahead and end the broadcast. I thank you to everybody who came out to see us and talk to us. Y'all have a good day, and stay tuned for the next video. Good night, guys.