Any HVAC guys here?

motogrady
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USA
10/8/2016 5:54am

And racer 29, get a jug of bleach. Put it in a squirt bottle and just spray that whole inside cabinet, coil included.
Some hardware stores sell coil cleaner, easy off oven cleaner would probally work, Simple Green is what I use
on the cabinets.
If you can't wait for the office, and it's hurting your health, you might have to take matters into your own hands.
Tell them you're thinking about getting your own, separate company to come and look at it, and if they find and do anything you're gonna send them the bill.

You're in a tough situation, besides sabatoge, fell free to bounce anything about this around here, moto guys are a kind of family. I think so, anyway.
nicko-31
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10/8/2016 6:17am
I'm afraid that we left the OP in the dust motogrady,you been schooling us and the poor guy just wanted his A/C to work. Grinning You obviously know your craft.
ns503
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NS Toolies, CA
10/8/2016 6:17am
There has been an explosion here in mini-split use, I'd say the past 5 years. No slowing down. A lot of new construction uses them now.

Heard unbelievable things too about ones in R&D using CO2 as refrigerant. And heating water. Would love something like that.
hillbilly
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Afton, TN, USA
10/8/2016 7:25am
markit wrote:
That whole system needs to be updated to a 410A system. The newer 410 coils are larger and not compatible with R22 systems (no longer available).
motogrady wrote:
Well, you can take a 410 coil and use 22 in it, the 410 coil will easily handle the pressure 22 runs on. Metering device needs...
Well, you can take a 410 coil and use 22 in it, the 410 coil will easily handle the pressure 22 runs on.
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.
That must be what i had in my mind . Something wouldn't work with something else because something was to something and made something not work.

The Shop

jpc63
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Sun City Center, FL, USA
10/8/2016 10:41am
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...
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.


You can pretty much count on it as having had refrigerant added to it over the years to either compensate for low airflow or mistakenly trying to correct what they thought was an undercharge condition.

Once proper airflow is restored that excess
refrigerant will just result in a warmer coil, but by now I imagine you're prob suffering from an inneficient compressor caused by who knows how many years of floodback & then they noticed couldn't adjust charge w/o compressor shutting itself off.
jpc63
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Sun City Center, FL, USA
10/8/2016 10:58am
Motogrady, I like how you used Infinity & mini-split in the same discussion. I don't know whats worse but since it's about even with going to court on my list of shit I don't wanna do, I'm gonna go with fucking with any mini-split.
SCR
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USA
10/8/2016 4:24pm
motogrady wrote:
And now, about the future. Nico and market might find this interesting more than most, but it's relevant to all. HVAC here in the States, is...
And now, about the future.
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.



Just got back Thurs nite from 3 days training at Daikin University for the VRV systems. Manufacture requires contractor to be trained to sell and cover warranty on the VRV/VRF systems. Did the install and commissionig training. Gonna go back and do 4 more days for controls and service.

We have been in installing these systems since the 80s but it's a whole new ballgame with the commercial VRV systems that can replace chiller plants, and large VAV systems.

The controls and commissioning on this stuff is like trying to read the repair manual for the spaceshuttle. To make it worse the translation from Japanes makes it more confusing.

Interesting stuff but I miss the old days when you could trouble shoot anything with a meter, set of guages, and an understanding of ohms law.


nicko-31
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USA
10/8/2016 6:54pm
Motogrady,yes DuPont made M099 and it's been said that it is highly flammable. But it was mostly sour grapes talk from places like United Refrigeration who can't sell it.It's not that new but I have not personally used it.
motogrady
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10/8/2016 7:48pm Edited Date/Time 10/8/2016 7:54pm
nicko-31 wrote:
Motogrady,yes DuPont made M099 and it's been said that it is highly flammable. But it was mostly sour grapes talk from places like United Refrigeration who...
Motogrady,yes DuPont made M099 and it's been said that it is highly flammable. But it was mostly sour grapes talk from places like United Refrigeration who can't sell it.It's not that new but I have not personally used it.
I hear it's big in Europe niko.
There are a few apt complexes that have their maintence guys do a lot of the easier stuff around here.
Charge up leakers in the spring, clean coils like racer29s.
They use the stuff. Re Michaels sells it,
They might call us for a stuck reversing valve, a txv.
Never happened to me, but a few guys in the shop say, even when you reclaim it, if you don't cut the part out, if you
use a torch and unsweat it, it's pretty wild when it breaks loose. Stand back they say.Laughing

I tell you guys, what really pisses me off, and this might piss off some of the younger guys, is what guys like SCR are going thru.

Having to learn and buy the stuff that's coming from foreign companies.

The ductless stuff, it was explained to me, we are so far behind them because Asia, and Europe have been using that kind of product since the early 1950s. There isn't a lot of ductwork over there. They have been honing and perfecting
that stuff for over half a century. They have been dealing with scarce energy while we have been living large, and basically not giving a rats behind on how much a kW of electricity costs.

Why aren't we, as a Nation, not jumping on the bandwagon?
All this coal we have, 100s of years worth, not being used because nobody can figure out how to burn it cleanly.
Apps up the ass, but the engineers at Carrier and Trane are sending jobs to other nations because they need the cheap labor to stay afloat making yesterday's news.

In other words, where are the Harold Goodmans?

MotoMo165
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5/10/2017 9:00am
Just read thru the entire thread. Motogrady, you obviously know your shit. Is a HVAC certificate well worth the money? I'm 22 years old, figuring college isn't for me. Don't mind hard work. Shit. I spend 10 hours a day cleaning pools now for roughly 500 a week. Looking to get into HVAC
motogrady
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5/10/2017 7:38pm
MotoMo165 wrote:
Just read thru the entire thread. Motogrady, you obviously know your shit. Is a HVAC certificate well worth the money? I'm 22 years old, figuring college...
Just read thru the entire thread. Motogrady, you obviously know your shit. Is a HVAC certificate well worth the money? I'm 22 years old, figuring college isn't for me. Don't mind hard work. Shit. I spend 10 hours a day cleaning pools now for roughly 500 a week. Looking to get into HVAC
I dunno guy........top pay on many a job site usually it's the electricians or plumbers.
Those 2 trades, especially the plumbers, are hurting for young guys.
The general stigma is keeping a lot of guys out of plumbing, so the guys that are in it are, kind of killing it.
And most everyone is scared to death of electricity, so those that master it can pretty much command a good pay.

HVAC, there are so many segments, fabricator in a shop, installer, service guy, residential, commercial, Industrial,
then throw refrigeration in there, it's all kinda the same, but it's all kind of different.

Myself, I kinda like riding around in my little van, pulling 4 or 5 calls a day, meeting different people, doing something different every 2 hours.

The thing is, it doesn't matter much which way you go.
I know a guy, took 4 years college, he's maybe 26, worked his way thru as a helper, got his degree and really is going after it. Youngest service manager for one of the biggest ac companies in the area. He's in line to get part of the business when the owners retire. He's smart, he hustles, he's good with customers, and he knows HVAC.
That kind of guy is gonna make it in any business.

That's what one should focus on, learn the trade, pick a good company, be loyal, demand your share, produce
and be honest.

As far as the certificate, get as many as you can, for whatever trade you feel is right for you.

And yeah, I got out of high school, same as you, I was done with going to class. Just couldn't do it.
5/12/2017 4:40am
motogrady wrote:
And racer 29, get a jug of bleach. Put it in a squirt bottle and just spray that whole inside cabinet, coil included. Some hardware stores...

And racer 29, get a jug of bleach. Put it in a squirt bottle and just spray that whole inside cabinet, coil included.
Some hardware stores sell coil cleaner, easy off oven cleaner would probally work, Simple Green is what I use
on the cabinets.
If you can't wait for the office, and it's hurting your health, you might have to take matters into your own hands.
Tell them you're thinking about getting your own, separate company to come and look at it, and if they find and do anything you're gonna send them the bill.

You're in a tough situation, besides sabatoge, fell free to bounce anything about this around here, moto guys are a kind of family. I think so, anyway.
Question, how does one know it's "black mold" I have had calls on this and almost always mold count is pegged through the roof and the people complaining have bad allergies and mold is one. I have sprayed a bleach solution on different things, ducts, foam window a/c ducts doesn't take the black stuff away. Now I've sprayed the bleach on black mold I've ran into on walls from plumbing leaks and it eats it off fairly easy. Seems most of a/c "mold" is just dirt that a good coil cleaner removes. Simple green works well, but a good all purpose cleaner will clean "dirt" off. Doesn't mold need to have a sample sent off to grow in a dish? That coil r29 showed it very dirty and his maintenance guys are lazy and didn't want to stay late, hopefully they came back and cleaned the coil better. My boss is "cost effective " he thinks this old a/c 's put in the 70's should run for ever. Lol one of our buildings has these magic PAC through the wall units crammed in a small utility rooms , I have to pull the water heater out to slide the a/c unit part out to work on it. Lol.

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