Houseloponik: My AC and AC guy both died

"Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo" (akioohtori) 08/21/2019 at 15:51 • Filed to: None

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Sorry to spell it out like that, but here we are. G ood contractors are hard to find. Unfortunately my AC guy, who is/was awesome, hasn’t been calling for my yearly maintenance for a while and calls to him get the busy signal.

Well... a quick google search turned up his obituary. Died early last year of unspecified cause at 55. Fucking sucks. He was a great guy and a great AC tech. 55 is too damn young.

Though that certainly put my problems in perspective, I still needed to find someone to fix my AC. My upstairs unit has always been a bit of problem child and usually picks the hottest day(s) of the year to be a bastard. Today is no exception . After polling facebook friends, I went with a larger company as a friend of mine who is even more of a skeptical perfectionist than I recommended them.

As you might expect as I am writing about it here: It did not go well.

They happened to have a tech available when I called, so after a little info was exchanged I headed home and they headed out. I signed up to have both units cleaned and checked, as the problematic unit worked most of the time, but seemed to crap out periodically and need some time to rest.

The tech showed up with... another guy. Let’s call him an assistant. He wasn’t, but lets call him that. They were both friendly and nice to talk to. We shot the shit while they checked over my units and everything seemed mostly ok.

The tl;dr is when they started diagnosing the outside unit they noticed it was running WAY above normal pressure (~150%) and shutting down because of it.

Well shit. What does that mean?

Well... their answer was it is a restriction in the system and it’ll need to be replaced.

This is where the assistant sprang into action! You see, he wasn’t an assistant at all! He was a salesman. Hard to believe anything a company is going to say if they assume going in your system is dead.

Either way, they quote me 5 options for replacement, ranging from $18,000 for a top-of-the-line 26-stage system to $10,000 for a single stage system. Woo. But wait there’s more! I could also sign up for their “PREMIER PLAN” which means I just LEASE the unit from them (WTF?!) for 8 years. Or I could sign up for an 8 year payment plan! “What are the terms?” Who is to say, not the document they gave me. I did back calculate the rate and it is apparently about 4.5%. Not terrible , but certainly not a good deal.

As they’re wrapping up, I do some googling and it looks like a likely culprit is the expansion valve. The fact that the system is holding that much pressure and not exploding is.... well frankly I take it as a good sign.

Anyway, I float this idea to the tech and he is like “yeah that could be it and we always like to give people options!” Weird that your option giving was limited to replacement options until I revealed I have the secret super power of the internet. He offered me a price for replacing the expansion valve, offering no suggestion on if that was actually the problem, I paid for the work, and they were on their way.

Literally as he was packing up his stuff, I’m on the phone with another recommendation. The conversation went something like this:

Me: “These are the symptoms, this is what they found, this is what I suspect.”
Him: “Oh, who did you have out.”
Me: [Company name]

!!! UNKNOWN HEADER TYPE (MULTI-LINE BREAK?) !!!

Today 2nd guy comes out, checks all the same stuff and just sort of shrugs.

We’re off to a great start!

With a little more prodding, he starts to investigate a little more. After a little looking around it appears the expansion valve is fine, it is the coil that is bad. Visual inspection shows only about half of it is cooling and the other half is approximately room temperature. To me that seems like a smoking gun.

“How much to replace it?” I ask.

“Uhhh, I’ll call you. If you don’t hear from me Monday then give me a call.” He responds and leaves quickly.

Oh goody.

To his credit, it is REALLY hot out so there are a lot of people with bad AC. My downstairs unit is working fine and the upstairs unit works OK as long as it isn’t over about 95 out. I am certainly not the worst off. Furthermore, it is supposed to rain the rest of the week, which will cool things down 5 - 10 degrees (and make the units run better) .

So now I have a choice to make. I’m pretty sold on replacing the coil, rather than shelling out for a new unit. While I have no guarantee these units will last another [random time period] I also have no reason to believe they won’t. Replacing the whole thing because of a bad coil seems like throwing the baby out with the bathwater to me. In my mind my options are:

Wait for guy #2 to call

Call a 3rd place and get them to quote the replacement

Sit and cry

Currently opting for #3 , but unsure if I should continue or not.

Cé hé sin > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo 08/21/2019 at 15:56

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Remind me never to live in a country where you’d want air conditioning in your house!

CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo 08/21/2019 at 15:56

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One AC problem you can’t fix with a recharge

vicali > CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever 08/21/2019 at 15:58

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House ran when parked..

TheBloody, Oppositelock lives on in our shitposts. > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo 08/21/2019 at 16:02

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Get it fixed, rather risk paying an extra $500 on a coil and maybe having to pay $10k down the road or spend $10k now.

Pich, with Z32 now featuring Civic [Si] / No > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo 08/21/2019 at 16:02

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that’ s a crisp lasagna

TheBloody, Oppositelock lives on in our shitposts. > Cé hé sin 08/21/2019 at 16:03

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Don’t worry you will live in a country that needs aircon in about 10-20 years (maybe) sigh.

smobgirl > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo 08/21/2019 at 16:08

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This sounds like a much more expensive version of my current washing machine situation. But it’s also part of why I don’t have central  a/c. $250 to replace a worn-out window unit is fine!

TorqueToYield > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo 08/21/2019 at 16:10

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Personally I’d wait for guy #2 until Monday and give him a call then if he’s flaky find a new place.

Finding reliable contractors has been the single worst part of owning a home for me. I can’t tell you how difficult it was to just find somebody to fix a leaking vent pipe on my roof. What type of place says over the phone “we’re sending a guy to check it out tomorrow” and then just never contacts you again? Incredible.

Also $10k for a replacement seems...high? If all your ductwork and air handler and all that is OK wouldn’t it just be the cost of a compressor and labor ?

facw > TheBloody, Oppositelock lives on in our shitposts. 08/21/2019 at 16:10

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That’s assuming the Atlantic Currents don’t break down: The Atlantic Ocean and an Actual Debate in Climate Science

If that were to actually happen, no one North of the Mediterranean  is going to have much use for AC.

MKULTRA1982(ConCrustyBrick) > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo 08/21/2019 at 16:11

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What is stopping you from attempting the repair yourself? After that many attempts with ‘professionals’ maybe try yourself over the weekend and if you realize it is out of your skill set, then enact the options above. That’s what I’m doing this weekend with my struts  because I don’t trust the most recent mechanic I’ve been to

Tsxtension > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo 08/21/2019 at 16:13

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What size is your AC? I’m having a new 4 ton 18 seer unit and coils put in tomorrow and am well below$10,000 for everything. If your AC runs R22 replace it as January 1st federal regs change . https://www.epa.gov/ods-phaseout

Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo > MKULTRA1982(ConCrustyBrick) 08/21/2019 at 16:20

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I don’t have or, frankly, want to have the tools or knowledge to do it myself. While they’re not complex systems on the face of it, any time you have to break into the refrigerant lines... it is a pass.  Both on cars and houses haha.

Party-vi > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo 08/21/2019 at 16:21

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Every company now wants to just put a new system in - it’s easier and makes them more money instead of fiddle-farting around with the parts cannon. Figure having a guy come to you with his truck is about $150 an hour, it makes more sense for them to want to one-and-done a job.

Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo > Tsxtension 08/21/2019 at 16:22

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Hmmm that is probably worth reading. What is the tl;dr?

And yeah it is a 3 ton and $10k does seem high.  Friend got his 5 ton done today for $6k.

OPPOsaurus WRX > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo 08/21/2019 at 16:25

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a company i used to work for reminds me of company #1, basically we want t o take your money weather we earned/deserve it or not. I really hope you scheduled the second guy to come out right infront of them so they could feel bad for what their company had them do.

when I went to sell my former house, the septic needed replacing which surprised me seeming it passed with no problem 5 years prior. We found out that that septic guy had falsified his report to get the house sold without getting it replaced . When I went to kill   violently fuck in a non sexual manor   kill sue the shit out of him, he was already dead. i was then goi ng to go after the realtor who sold me the house be he was dead too. So I guess losing $18k isn’ t as bad as being dead. 

Ash78, voting early and often > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo 08/21/2019 at 16:33

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Nope nope nope. Just a few years ago, I had a pretty basic Rheem unit installed — compressor, air handler, gas furnace, and all labor — for about $4,000. I believe it was a 3-ton...for a 1,200 sf SECOND FLOOR (read: It runs about 18- 20 hours a day in August). I think Goodman was about the same price, or Carrier for another $1k or so.

You can get much higher SEER ratings for twice the price, but they estimated maybe $10/month savings.

Just a data point, hope it helps...

TheBloody, Oppositelock lives on in our shitposts. > facw 08/21/2019 at 16:34

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Yeah, it was a bit flippant of a response. Who knows what is going to happen how quickly, it may take 50-100 years to see any real catastrophic damage. The pessimist in me thinks 40 years.

Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo > Ash78, voting early and often 08/21/2019 at 16:36

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Yeah I was already pretty sure the prices were BS.  Mostly just not wanting to deal with this right now haha.

shop-teacher > CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever 08/21/2019 at 16:38

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LOL. When I sold my Roadmaster with inoperable AC, the buyer (super nice young guy ) asked me, “Any chance it just needs a recharge?” To which I replied, “Nope, the compressor is se ized and it doesn’t even have a condenser in it anymore.” He appreciated my honestly. We had already agreed upon a price anyways, but I certainly wasn’t going to throw that just needs a charge line at him.

Ash78, voting early and often > Cé hé sin 08/21/2019 at 16:38

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Just the cubic footage required to run the ductwork would be the size of a small flat in Europe. :)

Ash78, voting early and often > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo 08/21/2019 at 16:40

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LOL -- mine went out a week after my daughter was born. While I got quotes (which took several days) I just put some window units into our rooms to make life manageable.

Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo > Cé hé sin 08/21/2019 at 16:42

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I don’t understand the concept.

shop-teacher > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo 08/21/2019 at 16:43

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Holy crack pipe Batman!

I’d go with #3. It’s only Wednesday, so, “If I d on’t call by Monday, call me,” is already flakier than I’d be comfortable with. Although it’s possible #3 will be as bad or worse than #2, you could always call #2 back Monday afternoon is #3 drops the ball.  At least #2 was actually willing to take the time to make a diagnosis.  Companies like #1 can go to hell and die.

someassemblyrequired > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo 08/21/2019 at 16:43

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I price out new units here, and add about $2K for install as a sanity check:

https://hvacdirect.com/

Bottom line, $10K is batshit. I put in a highish end 3 tonne AC/heat pump unit with backup heat recently for $6K.

If you have a relatively small upstairs I might consider some R2D2 style portable units or window units just to get through the summer, then re-evaluate.

Tsxtension > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo 08/21/2019 at 16:46

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Shop around. A friend of mine was told he needed a new unit until he had a different company look at it. He had a bad connection to his contactor. Cheap fix. I  got quotes from five different places before I picked one. I had an older (1994) r22 unit. New R22 can not be produced next year so the price could go up. 

Brickman > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo 08/21/2019 at 16:46

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Theres a restriction in the metering device is my 2 cents. Or compressor isn’t allowing refrigerant to build up at too high of a PSI.

Call around... and #3 is good too :)

66P1800inpieces > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo 08/21/2019 at 16:46

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The condenser (part outside) usually has a valve where it can be shut off, removed from they system and replaced for probably $2k including labor . Now, if your heating/distribution unit in the house is old it might make sense to replace it too. Then you are back in that $6-8k range. If you can hold off a couple of weeks until it is cooler you can probably get someone more reliable to install it at a reasonable price.

WilliamsSW > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo 08/21/2019 at 16:51

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That sucks all around. 55 is wayyyyy too young.

And I seem to have miserable experiences  with larger HVAC companies. Last time the heat went out and it was below 0, I called the wrong guys and they wanted to charge me $1800. Brought a different guy in who replaced the SAME SWITCH for $350. Fuckers.

66P1800inpieces > Tsxtension 08/21/2019 at 16:52

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Based on your post I was reading up on this. It looks like they will stop producing new R-22 December 31, 2019, but it appears that newly installed AC units would already be   the newer R410a units since 2015.

MKULTRA1982(ConCrustyBrick) > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo 08/21/2019 at 17:01

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That’s fair, especially with toxic/carcinogenic things under pressure. 

MKULTRA1982(ConCrustyBrick) > vicali 08/21/2019 at 17:02

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RVs do not ‘break down’, they become houses. 

Tsxtension > 66P1800inpieces 08/21/2019 at 17:24

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Yes. I am as far from an expert on this as can be. The only reason I know what little I do is researching after my unit died a few days ago

66P1800inpieces > Tsxtension 08/21/2019 at 18:11

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Almost in same boat. My condenser fan and capacitor went last week. I have found https://www.supplyhouse.com/ to be decent on pricing and since I am a state or two away parts arrive in a day or two (seriously cheap or free shipping). The system is about 15 years old and I want to put a deck where the outside unit is right now so I am thinking of a whole new system in the fall.  Might also help if I need to sell the house (job might be moving).

Tsxtension > 66P1800inpieces 08/21/2019 at 18:16

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It will definitely help if you sell the house. I bought this house in 2015. The old AC helped me negotiate  a lower price

ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo 08/21/2019 at 18:28

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That’s an unfortunate situation.  A few years back my barber died, and after I week of not being able to get an appointment I came across his obituary.  It took me about six months to find another good barber.  You situation feels a lot worse than not being able to get hairs cut the way I wanted.  

RacinBob > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo 08/21/2019 at 21:11

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Air conditioning is something that you can diagnose with your eyes and hands.

See the copper line leaving the unit outdoor unit ? It ought to be about 15 degrees above the ambient.

So if it is 95 F outside, the line should be about 110 degrees or 226 psi per the chart if R-22 .

SO if the yahoos are telling the truth, then they were seeing 350 PSI on the gauge and that line ought to be about 145 degrees. Is it?

If it is, take your hose and spray your outdoor coil and see if it cools down, Also see if your indoor coil starts cooling. If it does, you don’t have a restriction, you have a lack heat transfer. I bet if you put a hose to it and it will start working .

If that is the case, heat transfer is easy to fix. It just requires sufficient air to go over enough fins to cool the refrigerant . There are two common causes for heat transfer to be lost in outdoor units ;

1. The coil is plugged with cottonwood seeds or similar. Does it look plugged through the outside louvers ? Can you see light t hough the fins? If it is plugged you can get coil cleaner spray, take the grills off and have at it. Or you can pay someone to do it,

2 . The other cause is the fan is turning too slow to cool the unit. This is a common failure caused by a condenser fan motor bearing that has tightened up. As a result the the fan looks like it is turning but is actually be rotating at 5 0% speed. That is how these motors fail. . Watch the fan, does it look like it is turning slow? Turn the unit off, stop in less than a second or does it stop in an instant ? If the fan motor is tight, I would call a shop and have them replace the condenser fan motor and start capacitor. The total charge should be a couple of $2 00 to $500.

If you want to replace the fan motor yourself, you have the technical ability if you are careful. You pull the disconnect switch or circuit breaker, you then watch a video on on how to disc harge the start capacitor (very important) , and then you remove the fan motor. The first thing to look at the motor is whether it has bearing oil holes. If yes, oil it and you might be fine. The re-assemble and be done

If the bearing is tight and can’t be lubricated , pull the fan blade (good luck it will be an SOB). and take the motor to a supply house for a replacement. (If you can’t pull the fan, buy a new one at the supply house, Also pull and bring the start capacitor and buy one of those too.

I don’t want to criticize the tech and salesman bit I don’t think their explanation makes sense. If there was a restriction to water flow in your Alfa and the engine was overheating, would the radiator be hot or cold at speed? It would be cold as the water would be moving slowly through radiator. Restriction means not enough coolant flow. Same is true for refrigerant. If the orifice in the system was plugged, you should have a cold line not a hot one.

Based on their comments I think  your unit can easily be fixed. High pressure means you have refrigerant. No ice on the indoor unit means there is sufficient charge and airflow. And i f it starts working when you put a hose to it, then all you have to do is get enough air to go across enough fins to cool the unit.

Ps, don’t worry if the fins look old and oxidized as long as there is air and flow you are fine.

RacinBob > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo 08/21/2019 at 21:21

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I don’t think it is an expansion valve. In fact I doubt it has a valve, it probably has a fixed orifice. And again if either were plugged, I think you would see frost at the unit and low pressures at the condenser. (so says the guy who sits at a desk all day and rarely sees these things in the flesh).....

This article basically reflects my comments. https://www.achrnews.com/articles/97890-what-causes-high-compressor-discharge-temperature#targetText=Low%20evaporator%20pressures%20also%20may,pressure%20to%20the%20condensing%20temperature.&targetText=Listed%20below%20are%20causes%20of,Dirty%20evaporator%20coil.

RacinBob > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo 08/21/2019 at 21:37

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I also don’t think the inside coil is bad. If your outdoors unit is hot as a pistol, it has maybe 40% of the capacity it should. 40% of the refrigerant can only cool 40% of the coil before it boils away. I say, hit the outdoor unit with a hose and then see how the indoor coil cools......

RacinBob > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo 08/22/2019 at 07:44

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One other possibility, if the compressor pressure is high but the leaving refrigerant temp is at ambient, that is a result of somebody putting too much refrigerant in the system. These systems do not have a receiver to hold excess refrigerant. The idea is charge them so that there is liquid in the line going to the coil and no more.

If somebody puts a lot more refrigerant than they should into the system, the liquid backs up into the outdoor condenser coil, reducing it’s capacity. Now that is kind of unlikely but it is possible that somebody over charged it by 10 or so pounds, that would be the result.....

Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo > RacinBob 08/22/2019 at 09:51

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Thanks for all the comments!  It is all good information.  The 1st guys measured 417PSI on the high side and the small line was actually quite tepid, rather than hot.  The 2nd guy and I both took a look at evaporator (inside coil) and it seemed to be the problem.  Half of the coils were running nice and cold and sweating their hearts out, the other half were room temp.  He indicated this was the expansion valve doing its job, overloading the working coils in an attempt to compensate for the non-working ones.  This all makes sense to me, but I’m also new to most of this.

Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo > RacinBob 08/22/2019 at 09:54

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Good to know, but I don’t think it is the case. I’ve been in this house for 6 years and we’ve never put a charge in  it. I think this is a progressive issues over the last 3 or so years. My former AC guy noted the pressure was high a while back, but wanted to wait and see how it progressed.

RacinBob > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo 08/22/2019 at 21:13

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I defer to anybody, especially your old mechanic regarding diagnosis. So with that in mind here is my take; If the pressure is high the discharge temperature also has to be high. That’s the law of refrigerants .

417 PSI discharge should be about 180 degrees per the R-22 table. And since it is tepid there are four things I can think of.

1. The system has too much refrigerant. But if that is true there should be some of the coil that is very hot....
2. The system has bad refrigerant. Some shady mechanic used propane or something or he got cheap Chinese R-22 which is who know’s what....
3. It was improperly evacuated when serviced and has air in it.
4. The system is a R-22 system and it is charged with R-410a or has some R-410a mixed in by accident. I think that is the problem because R-410a would operate at 115 f at 412 psi and it has about 60% the capacity as R-22 by volume. So as a result you could see all three symptoms of high pressures (for R-22), tepid discharge as the condenser is 50% oversized, and insufficient refrigerant flow to cool the entire condenser.

I think that since the common factor here is refrigerant, If it were mine I would think about paying the second mechanic to pull the charge, evacuate the system and recharge it with new refrigerant. He’d probably charge you a couple hundred but at least you would know whether it could be fixed or not. The way I look at it, the compressor works, the coil works and the expansion valve works. If it was the refrigerant, you might end up with a good working system.....

Wurrwulf > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo 08/22/2019 at 22:20

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So, I bought a house with an 18 year old AC. The coil went out a year or so later. They told me that they had to make a coil because m y AHU was no longer in production. Two years after having the coil replaced, I had to have the AHU replaced . I opted to get a n ew AHU and outdoor condenser. With a home warranty, I still came out of pocket $7,500.

Be sure you have a good AC company doing work for you.