A view into my childhood (A normal Kid)

So let’s roll the clock back to age 7-8yrs old. My father built my brother and I a tree fort. I mean what kid doesn’t want a tree fort right? It was basic, more so like a platform built out of 2×4’s. Once I was able to get a power circular saw, tape measure and hammer, I quickly became a kid framer. I built up the side wall from the platform, built a pulley system to raised full sheets of 3/4″ plywood up about 20′ in the air to cover the wall framing. So now we ended up with a basic square box, but it was private now. The problem was it was a dark cave. So that means you need power, right?

I remember running a 1″ Electrical PVC pipe from our house underground across the yard and up the tree. Yes, I dug the trench for the conduit. But because of who I am, 120 volts wasn’t good enough for me, so, I ended up running a 30 amp 240-volt circuit, wired to a mini subpanel in my tree fort. Then I installed indoor lighting and outlets, and also outdoor flood lights. After all, I have to see who’s out there, right? So now we had power, but the next issue was that in the summertime this thing was an Oven. I guess painting the exterior black didn’t help much.

Because I’m not a fan of extreme heat, I needed to find a solution. By then I was already working on weekends with my father, in his Refrigeration business. Being still a kid with very little money, I was always on the hunt for used refrigeration equipment at some of the stores that we were working at, that was no longer hooked up but left to rust away.

Note: For any of you that have been in the refrigeration field since the 80’s at some point you might have come across an old Belt driven compressor condensing unit. It basically looks like any belt driven air compressor you see today. These units back in the day were the workhorse of the industry for many years.

Me, the scavenger kid I was, I located an old 1Hp Belt driven condensing unit. I asked the owner of the store if I could have it. He said yes and told me it wasn’t working and was glad to clear the basement space. Someone told him the compressor was seized up. So, I took it home, and disassembled the compressor to find out that it had run out of oil, so it was locked up indeed. But that didn’t stop me, after getting some fresh oil in it and using a big breaker bar on the shaft nut, I was able to free it up. It turned nice and smooth,and I replaced the drive motor on the unit that had burned up.

Now it was time for A/C in my tree fort. Unfortunately no subcooling on it back then.

After hauling this very heavy piece of equipment up the tree ladder, part by part I reassembled this unit on the roof of the tree fort. On the inside of my tree fort, I mounted a used single fan evaporator coil, that I had reclaimed from a walk-in cooler replacement job.

I then got some copper tubing and fittings from my dad’s truck, and I ran the lineset from the coil to the condensing unit, wired the evaporator fan, thermostat, low pressure control and compressor drive motor. You know it’s Funny now looking back, since the unit was actually an R-12 refrigerant.

Now the Big Day was here, No More Oven. Evacuated the system, charged it up and turned it on. Within about 5-10 mins, it was 60F and freezing inside, even with no door on the tree fort and no insulation in any of the walls. Despite all this, we still pulling really good temperatures. Ok, yes, I know, this wasn’t efficient, but come on I was like 8 years old.

And for the record, my brother and I were the only ones that did all the wiring and AC install. I mean seriously, how many kids have a tree fort with power and A/C. Oh and of course come winter we used an electric space heater , lol.

As a Kid I was always a very mechanical person; I remember having a go-kart when I was about 12yrs old. It had a 5hp gas engine on it. Yeah, the only problem with that was, that it wasn’t good enough for me. So, I then got friendly with the guy that ran the local lawn mower shop that we had bought the go-kart from, along with several other parts. I convinced him to bore out the engine, he had fitted a higher compression, forged piston in it for me. We then reworked the carburetor and well yes added a Sneaky Pete Nitrous kit to it. It was like a 10oz or so bottle of nitrous oxide, I remember it ran off a 9v battery. But boy when you kicked it in, it was crazy fast; I used to race cars going up our street, back then I could hit 60mph going uphill. Yes, I know not as fast as modern ATV’s. But remember this was only a beefed up 5 hp lawn mower engine.

As a Teenager I went on to build several Big Block Motors, with Nitrous of course, LOL. I guess I’ve always had a Need for Speed, lol.

At age 18, I built my first Multi-Compressor Med temperature Rack system from the ground up. This was for a supermarket in New Haven, CT.

This was a custom build, we engineered and designed between my brother and I.

Started with welding up a steel frame in the basement of the store, mounting all the compressors, installing all the copper suction and discharge headers, and configuring all the different circuits, Dairy, meat, produce, etc.

Set the remote condenser on the roof and hooked up a heat reclaim coil on the down stair air handler for winter heating.

Wired the main feed to the rack and did all the control wiring for defrost and thermostats.

All the existing refrigeration units that operated the store were, at the time, separate condensing units in the basement that were all water cooled with the wastewater going right down the drain. Needless to say, the store’s water bill was very expensive every month.

Once the Rack system was ready to go, we piped in about 3 circuits to have enough load on one compressor to keep it running.

I remember at the time holding my breath, when we first turned the power on to the system to start it for the first time.

This was it, the moment of truth, after two months of work, my engineering and hard work was going to come to life or was it going to fail badly.

When we opened the liquid line, and that very first compressor started for the first time, I then could breathe again; my project was working.

Once we went upstairs and saw the case temperatures dropping after about 20 mins of runtime and charging the system up with refrigerant.

I heard a voice yell out, “We’re good up here, running at 34 degrees.” I then went on to turn on the heat reclaim, and then boom, a 3-way valve kicked in. Checked discharge air temperature and found a nice 22-degree delta. We High Fived each other. Job Well done.

Over the next 2 weeks, we continued to pipe in the remaining circuits to the new rack and load it up. Everything ran nice and smoothly and held the load without any issues.

The owner of the supermarket was this older gentleman named Sal.

So, once we got all the refrigeration switched over to the new rack system, Sal comes up to me one day and looks at me and says I know a lot of the people here doubted you and wondered if this was actually going to work or not.

He looks at me, extends his hand, shakes my hand and says, “I never did.” At that moment, only being 18yrs old, I felt like I really accomplished something. Felt really good at that moment. As most of my High School friends were out partying, I was engineering and building a refrigeration Rack System.

That rack system then went on to run trouble free from 1992 to 2006, when they later expanded the store, and put a new machine room with a Hill/Phoenix system on the roof. We did the new remodel of their store and once everything was connected to the New Machine, we then went on to shut down the rack system I built. My first real Accomplishment.

I then later went on to Engineer and custom build several more Multi-compressor rack systems, both Low and Med temperature models. So, I have a vast knowledge of how the mechanics of Refrigeration and Hvac systems work and function and how to make them a lot more efficient. And I’ve been able to leverage my knowledge and experience with refrigeration towards improving air conditioning performance.