Posts
774
Joined
2/8/2012
Location
Midland, NC
US
Edited Date/Time
5/10/2017 9:00am
Need an opinion on something.
I live in an apartment and have noticed over the last 3 months my electric bill has been more than double. Yes some of that due to summer in TX but still a lot higher than last year at the same time. I snapped last night when I was sweating on my couch while I could hear the AC run but the air comming out of the vents was weaker than an elf fart.
I did some looking around thought maybe the filter was just completely blocked. It looked dirty but not enough to block air flow. Dug a little deeper and found the coil. It was pretty gross looking. Black sludge looking stuff.
I put in a work order at 6am. Followed up with a visit to the office. They assured me it would be taken care of today.
4pm I call and say no one has come by. I was told that there are other work orders in front of me and they will get to it when they do.
Around 5 pm they come buy take a look and say ah thats not bad at all. Spend about 10 seconds spraying some cleaner on it and tell me turn it on in 20 min and it will be good.
We'll I did and it's upgraded from an elf fart to a dwarf fart and I'm still fkn hot. At what point does a coil need to be replaced?
Ok vent over but if there are any HVAC guys on here I can post pics for your opinion.
I live in an apartment and have noticed over the last 3 months my electric bill has been more than double. Yes some of that due to summer in TX but still a lot higher than last year at the same time. I snapped last night when I was sweating on my couch while I could hear the AC run but the air comming out of the vents was weaker than an elf fart.
I did some looking around thought maybe the filter was just completely blocked. It looked dirty but not enough to block air flow. Dug a little deeper and found the coil. It was pretty gross looking. Black sludge looking stuff.
I put in a work order at 6am. Followed up with a visit to the office. They assured me it would be taken care of today.
4pm I call and say no one has come by. I was told that there are other work orders in front of me and they will get to it when they do.
Around 5 pm they come buy take a look and say ah thats not bad at all. Spend about 10 seconds spraying some cleaner on it and tell me turn it on in 20 min and it will be good.
We'll I did and it's upgraded from an elf fart to a dwarf fart and I'm still fkn hot. At what point does a coil need to be replaced?
Ok vent over but if there are any HVAC guys on here I can post pics for your opinion.
For comparison I left the access cover of while it was running and it was hurricane force winds coming out of the vents. Only problem is when I do that it doesn't draw air through the coil. So I get lots of hot air movement no cooling.
After they cleaned it lol
Close up
The Shop
If it blows with the access cover off, it definitely sounds like an air restriction issue of some sort. Which filter did you check? The air return? I have air returns throughout the house, each with a filter that gets changed monthly, but there's also a filter on the unit itself that they recommend I change once per year. When I bought the house it hadn't been changed in like 8 years. lol Maybe check for one of those? Really wish I could help more.
Where is the outside condensing unit located? Can you identify which one is yours? Check and see if that coil is clean so air can flow through it as well.
The first thing I do when I buy a property for rental purposes is to have my a/c contractor go out and give the system a proper inspection and service. If it needs to come out, so be it. If it leaks after cleaning, replace it. I hate getting calls on a/c not working because they never call during the week, always Friday after 5:00. Then they tell me it hasn't been cooling very well for a few days....
Sure does help my case that I am very allergic to mold and I have literally been sick since February.
90 outside the coil tubes should be 45 to 50 degress.
That coil is insanely grungy. A fine pet brush,its like small wires stuck in a foamy pad, is the best I've found to clean debris out the fins.
Ha, that's an old one.
They need to replace. Cheap fucks.
The half moons, and the manifold pipe, if they're sweating, you have refrigerant.
Spraying that coil, the stuff mist use nowadays is bio friendly, and is useless.
That coil should be shiney bright.
Thing is, the good coil cleaner is basically just diluted battery acid, and smells like it, and freaks some people out.
So many don't use it anymore.
I work on this stuff all day.
That coil needs cleaning, a good cleaner, then blown out with high pressure gas, nitrogen, compressed air, whatever.
Not a shop vac in reverse, 100 psi or better.
Then the blower wheel, or squirrel cage needs checking, I'll bet its full of dust.
The vanes get even half full of crap and the performance if that blower drops off big time.
Pull the blower, take it outside and compressed air. Shit will be flying everywhere.
Then, find the outside unit. Make sure that fan is running, garden hose out the outdoor coil.
You can use a cleaner, but a garden hose with good pressure usually works good.
Then, check refrigerant charge.
You should have a 15 to 20 degree drop thru that indoor unit.
Get a cheap thermometer at the Dollar store, put it where the air vent blows out for a few minutes.
Then put it at the vent where it sucks in, or by that cruddy coil in the pic, the difference should be 15-20 degrees.
Or, play the game, like the guy previous said, take that pic and moan and groan how you are feeling bad, and have been. Go to the office. You have been getting black mold exposure. And either that thing is cleaned, shiney bright, cabinet, blower, drain pan, everything in the airstream, or you're going to the local Health Department.
You pay your rent. You deserve clean air in your apt.
That thing has the equivalent of a million miles on a car.
The new stuff uses less electricity, uses environmentally friendly refrigerant, and just plain works better.
Don't let them off the hook.
It will be cheaper to replace that thing then to clean it up properly.
It's not like you're being a dick, it's them that are milking it for all it's worth, at your expense.
The outside unit is free of any debris but got the same half ass effort that the inside did.
I will keep pestering them until it's replaced.
Thing is, to replace that coil, if it's still available, is a big job.
You need to reclaim the refrigerant, get that thing out, get a new one, braze it in with silver solder,
put the system under a vacuum, then recharge it.
We get maybe 1800 for something like that.
Total new system, in and outside units, maybe 3,500 tops.
All they need is a blower motor to go out, or a compressor and you have almost new money, in a 20 years pos.
That coil, think of it like the radiator on your bike.
You don't just brush your radiator off after a few races, you hose those things out, getting the dirt that's lodged half way
thru, so they breath.
Same with that coil. It's maybe 1.5 to 2 inches thick.
You really need to blast the crap thru it, then clean it.
You don't, the air going thru it doesn't dump the heat thru the fins, into the freon, to be carried to the outdoor unit where it is dumped. The hot air just passes thru what is really an insulated fin in a coil.
If you can get them to really clean that coil, and the blower, because air flow is your friend, more air, more heat transfer,
That should get you going.
Legionnaires Disease. Ever heard of it? Drain pans in units like that, is where it comes from.
I got extra parts when i put my janitrol in 20 yrs ago. I'm set till toe tag.
I feels ya guy.
Pit Row
I would push to get a new coil at minimum. Tell them its going to leak thru the pan sooner than later it will cost much more in water damage to the house than the new coil will cost. You can also mention that you have not felt well lately and its probably from the mold and bacteria in the coil. That might get their attention.
Hillbilly got a Janitrol eh.
That brand, was created by a great man.
Harold Goodman, legend has it, was a Seabee in WW2.
After the war, became an ac contractor in the upper Mid East.
With his work ethic, and a bit of good timing, got so big up there he was buying and installing most all of the central ac units manufactures had in that area.
So, he started making his own.
Got so big, the Unions tried to get in.
Told them to fuck off, moved everything to Houston, Texas.
Was one of the first guys to make flex duct.
Before his death, he had the 2nd largest ac manufacturing company in the USA.
His drunken son sold out, early 2000s, for 600 million.
Basic, reliable equipment that cost wise is hard to beat.
I still see a ton of it out there.
It's a good time to be in this trade.
The young guns won't remember, but maybe 30 years ago, the Government wanted to get rid of what is called r12.
It was a great refrigerant. Too good. It ran on pressure not much above 120 psi.
All cars ran on r12. The 12th refrigerant invented and patented.
You could cool stuff down to freezing if you wanted.
Problem was, when that shit leaked out, and cars with the hoses and engine shaking all the time leaked a lot, it being lighter than air went straight up to the clouds. The Ozone. And r12 depletes ozone at a rate of 1000 to 1.
So, the EPA and the Government gradually increased a tax on it till it was just too expensive for the average guy to want to use it. A 30 pound of 12 used to cost maybe 40 bucks. Now, it's around 1,600.
Now, r22, the stuff in racer29s unit, and Hillbillies unit, the 22nd freon, is no where near as bad as 12 was on the clouds, but, it has chlorine in it. That kinda messes with the clouds also, to a much lesser degree, but it still does.
So they are doing the same thing with 22 that they did with 12.
R22 was/is used on every central ac, every window unit, and a lot of restaurant coolers.
A jug of 22 that used to go for 45 bucks is now near 600, and rising every year.
So, a guy leaks refrigerant, on a typical heat pump or ac unit, and needs say, 5 lbs of r22, we sell it for around 125 a pound. Thats 600 bucks, plus the service call, plus trying to find the leak if the customer wants to.
You can bang a grand real easy working with r22. And next year, it's gonna be worse.
Last year, was the last year you could buy a system that ran on 22.
The Government put a stop to it. You can still get parts, but the manufactures are not wanting to mess with them.
They want to make new stuff.
Now, a new system, like racer29, will go for anywhere from 2500 to 10k, depending on the size and rating.
So, it's real easy, and will be for the next 5 to 10 years, to sell a new unit to a guy like Hillbilly.
You'd be foolish to spend a grand next year, and still have an old unit with plenty of other stuff ready to go bad,
with parts hard to find,
than to spend what it takes and get all new, with a 10 year all parts warranty.
And if you don't make 2 to 3 k on an new install, that takes a day, 2 max, to put in, you're giving your work away.
So, for the near future, it's kinda good pickings here in hvac land.
Now, r22, which runs on double the pressure of 12, let's say 220 psi, is half of what the new stuff, r410 runs.
On a hot day, on racer29s unit, if it was new, running 410, you can see 425 psi. Bare minimum, 320 psi.
That's why you can't mix the old 22 systems with the new, r410 systems.
We were blowing that stuff up left and right when they first started changing over.
The 22 systems were not designed for those pressures, they can't handle 410.
The only good thing about 410, besides the price, which is coming down as the others rise, is it has zero
Ozone depletion. It doesn't hurt the clouds.
And yeah, imagine what would happen, if the complex where racer 29 is living, got yanked up and had to fix or clean,
or replace the 100 or so units they have. Hell, one of our customers is a 450 unit complex.
But eh, there's a ton of landlords out there that do just what racer29s guy is doing.
Bare minimum, fix it till it can't be fixed, it's all about the bottom line, money wise, to those guys.
I've already played the mold and sick card and they didn't blink at all.
For what it's worth I do have some insane allergies and no doubt this is not helping.
I thought the ozone shit was bullshit because the particles could not float all the way to ozone altitude,they were not light enuff.
I ain't going there guy.
Good deal Hillbilly.
A few guys I know stocked up on r12 back in the day, they were gonna make a killing.
But the manufactures came out with a replacement , r134, anyone can buy it at an auto parts store.
Blew that scheme right out of the water.
That's why I kinda think there's something to what you're saying, that all this changing stuff is just a way for the government and manufactures to make a killing.
Watch, when the bulk of the r22 systems are finally changed out in 5, 10 years, all of a sudden some magical
blend of freon that has zero depletion will be discovered.
Ya, keep the coils and blower clean, that Janitrol will last a long time.
Was on a GE last week, now they're Trane, effing thing was 36 years old, still pumping.
I think that's the stuff that has a lot of propane in it.
We don't use it because of the chance a leak developing in a small, unventilated closet, making for a sizable explosion.
Ain't that the stuff you gotta be real careful working around with a torch?
Metering device needs changing tho.
The hole that lits the freon squirt into the coil is a bit bigger or smaller between 22 and 410, if it's what is called a piston
metering device. It's just a small brass slug with a hole in it. The bigger the unit, the bigger the hole.
Another way they to it is with a txv, a thermal expantion valve. It senses how cold the coil gets with a copper blub that you clamp on the coil. The coils gets too cold, it squeezes or throttles off the freon squirting into the coil.
More accurate, but it's a moving part that can and does fail. They too are made just for 22 or 410, you gotta use the right valve for the right freon.
We use a lot of Carrier, and those fucking guys make it as complex as can be.
The top line Carrier stuff, Infinity and Greenspeed series are now coming with electronic txvs.
A sensor tells the computer what's happening, and the computer adjusts the exv.
Try and troubleshoot one of those things.
And yeah, the coils are getting bigger, but mainly to get better efficiency.
A 5 ton coil is a 5 ton coil.
That they won't fit into an old cabinet is the issue.
Nico and market might find this interesting more than most, but it's relevant to all.
HVAC here in the States, is undergoing a a size able change that most don't see.
I was enlightened at a Carrier meeting last winter.
Oil furnaces, gas furnaces, heat pumps. Central airconditioners, hell, even wood burning stoves are targeted
by the powers that be.
Targeted in power consumption and pollution.
There is talk of, in the future, going as far as issuing a kind of ration card to the general public, or tax, on how much
energy you can use to cool or heat your house.
EPA gone wild.
And, at the moment, the clear leader in energy effiency, low cost of installation and performance, is Japan.
And they're doing it with these.
Ductless heat pumps.
Sales last year here in the US increased 492%.
Twice the effiency of regular heatpumps.
No duct work needed.
No flue or chimmney needed.
All electric, no pollution at the site.
The top of the line unit, Toshiba, the ones Carrier buys and slaps its name on, can heat a home with no electric
strip heaters to help it, down to -20 degrees outside.
Nothing made in America even comes close.
You wanna job for the future, learn how to work on these things.
They are incredibly complex.
Some, you need an oscilloscope to troubleshoot it.
Crazy, maybe.
But, if the Government has its way, and it looks like it's gonna happen even without them, these are what's coming.
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