Home AC failed in 5 years

[Jim greengo]

Gauges? What's that? lol

Maybe he had a calibrated thumb - he can tell the state of charge by feel? I think they used to call it "beer-can cold".

Exactly,the old if it sweats it's good trick.

 

[Jim greengo]

Agreed.

I always felt that flat rate was unfair overall. Customers who don't take care of their equipment nor do regular maintenance most often have horrible units that require alot more cleaning and time spent. Concerned customers usually require less time doing such tasks, as their units are in better shape.
Flat rates are calculated for the company to make money on the worst case scenario job, so, most other customers pay more than they have to. Concerned customers overpay for regular services, while bad customers get "subsidized" for their behavior. With hourly, good customers pay less as I could go through and do their services faster. bad customers paid more, as it took me more time and effort to get their units ship shape. Just seemed more fair to me.

Although today - with the rates I saw working at my last temp job - most companies don't give a rip and just charge what they can get away with. And most customers are ignorant of what's going on, and just grumble and pay. And not just A/C. Auto repair, home repair, and plumbing are just as bad. It's horrible.

Exactly,I always figured either the service guy or the customer was getting screwed.
It's like giving an estimate over the phone without knowing theres either a wall or a water heater sitting directly in front of the blower compartment on the furnace.
I dont give a price on anything unless I can look at it 1st.

 

[Junkman]

Just over $100 an hour on a Sunday no less seems like a bargain to me. I don't think any legitimate HVAC company in the Minneapolis area has an hourly rate that low for a weekday call. Just the callout charge for Sunday service would probably be getting close to what you paid for almost four hours of work. An HVAC guy doing side work is about the only one who would charge as little as you paid.

I paid $329 just to have a my A/C condenser cleaned last summer on a weekday. I was stupid and never asked for the price and they never gave me the price either. I would have bought some coil cleaner and done it myself had I asked for the price beforehand. He spent less than 45 minutes on site. I realize the guy had to drive to my house and the coil cleaner cost something, but it felt like a total ripoff.

This young man has a family and is working hard to provide for them as he explained. He is also building up a clientele base by offering good service. I expected to pay more for a Sunday service call, but to him, it is just another day. He schedules his services around his family, and he presently has no employees. He did tell me that he spent 10 years in the industry working for another company that didn't appreciate his dedication and work ethic, so 2 years ago he decided to go out on his own. He is doing well and I admire him for his work ethic. I am certain that Sundays are not a regular workday year-round, but during the cooling system, he does the work that is necessary for him to build his own nest egg.

 

[bonneyman]

This young man has a family and is working hard to provide for them as he explained. He is also building up a clientele base by offering good service. I expected to pay more for a Sunday service call, but to him, it is just another day. He schedules his services around his family, and he presently has no employees. He did tell me that he spent 10 years in the industry working for another company that didn't appreciate his dedication and work ethic, so 2 years ago he decided to go out on his own. He is doing well and I admire him for his work ethic. I am certain that Sundays are not a regular workday year-round, but during the cooling system, he does the work that is necessary for him to build his own nest egg.

Well, I give him alot of credit for adopting this attitude. A hard worker being fair with his services is a rare bird.

But I did that for 14 years. Helped people out, if I showed up and fixed a simple thing I charged $20 not the full service fee, told people what to do (simple things) over the phone, not charging for incidentals (wire nuts, crimp connectors, electrical tape, things like that). Charged $60 bucks and hour when others were doing $100+, charging $40 a pound for R22 while others reamed at $100, didn't add a trip charge till gas spiked, free estimates, did PM filter change barely breaking even hoping when they needed a new unit I'd get the call. Ended up going broke. I don't regret what I did, but it wasn't the way to be profitable. I chock it all up enjoying what I did and I got/will get blessed in a different way. "You can't put a price on being able to live with yourself"

I commend anybody going into business for themselves but these days it's really difficult to make a profit if you're honest.

 

[reader2580]

You can be honest and still make money. You can't make money charging $20 for a service call with no trip charge. It probably cost you most of $20 every time you start the van when you consider gas, oil, repairs, initial cost of the van, and all that. It only makes sense to charge a minimum fee for the first 30 or 60 minutes. Only the cheapskate customers you really don't want are going to complain about it taking you five or ten minutes to fix their unit while you charge for 30 or 60 minutes. Most are just going to be happy they have heat or A/C again and it wasn't an expensive repair.

 

[Jim greengo]

You can be honest and still make money. You can't make money charging $20 for a service call with no trip charge. It probably cost you most of $20 every time you start the van when you consider gas, oil, repairs, initial cost of the van, and all that. It only makes sense to charge a minimum fee for the first 30 or 60 minutes. Only the cheapskate customers you really don't want are going to complain about it taking you five or ten minutes to fix their unit while you charge for 30 or 60 minutes. Most are just going to be happy they have heat or A/C again and it wasn't an expensive repair.

Hr minimum ,unless it's for some little old lady or somebody with a bunch of kids.
I remember what it was like starting out back in the day,doing without.
Fortunately I'm in a position in life where I can most of my service calls for entertainment purposes these days,can pick/choose my projects.

 

[danski0224]

The "little old ladies" might have a stash of cash... and a bunch of birth control would (could) have prevented the kids.

I'm ok with "charity", if the situation warrants it.

 

[toplessHO]

Wow im not an HVAC tech but even I know you have to hookup both gauges to see how the pressures are running.

What a *****.

Did you get a discount for the 5Lbs that this tech removed? Im guessing they could sell it to someone that needs it

that excess freon is more of a liability vs an asset
I would charge first company the price of 2nd company's work.

 

[toplessHO]

That's what I am trying to figure out ?

Was the unit always overcharged and a combination of temp and dirty coil finally had it go off on high limit ? But -- then .. why would overcharging even more have it run for two days?

Want to hope for the OP that it's all fixed .... seems strange.

We had an ICP 2 ton unit at a vacation place about 100 miles from our primary that lost charge in strange ways. Unit was installed in the later 90's. It could be serviced and work for a year or more --- or loose charge in two months in the summer. Problem started late in the summer of the third year. It drove me nuts for about 5 years until it finally would not start ... sounded like a bucking bronco when it tried. The service company came out with two guys and told me it sounded like a connecting rod and not worth the labor to fix --- except, the compressor was a scroll?

I mentioned this to my local Carrier dealer who worked on all my stuff (personal and rental) and he agreed to give me a price to replace the unit as long as I was not in a hurry. It was the end of the summer. The unit was on the second floor. He called me a few weeks later to say another (bigger commercial) customer had a house in the area. He was sending one of his guys there in a few days and could he stop over to look at the job for pricing. The guy was early as the other job was a simple -- made him coffee and he says "let me hear the old one". He stands by the disconnect and pulls it after the thing bangs a few times. Next thing I know he is looking around and out come the gauges -- he had the thing purring along in no time. It had dropped charge again and with the evap on the second floor -- the compressor was fluid locked with oil as well. He also told me that it should have had a device or "s" in the pipe to protect the compressor when it was installed.

But -- whay was it leaking ? It was leaking because I had the unit serviced before the summer of that third year. In doing the check up one of the Schrader valves was damaged and sometimes it held for few months and sometimes for a year. So -- in servicing a perfectly fine system I introduced a problem. The service guy told me the valves are not like the old days and that was 25 years ago. Now -- when I have any work done I have them replace the valve inserts .... some companies try and rip you off for this ... it's very simple and cheap service if you discuss up front.

It's a very common leak point. It's another reason I don't touch working systems

we call that S an oil trap.
Good idea that vertical runs get it if over 10 ft.
Did company 1 have a scale to verify that one # was added?
I m guessing not and it was way over charged.

 

[toplessHO]

Gauges? What's that? lol

Maybe he had a calibrated thumb - he can tell the state of charge by feel? I think they used to call it "beer-can cold".

you can tell a lot about the charge by looking at sweatback.
But gauges are best.

 

[LS6 Tommy]

Well line sets can and do leak, start by looking for oil stains on the unit. service ports are big source of leaks also.
Then find a different service company.

Best answer yet. The "tech" that came to th OP's house was a hack.

Tommy

 

[LS6 Tommy]

Did you get a discount for the 5Lbs that this tech removed? Im guessing they could sell it to someone that needs it

That's not legal. Recovered/recycled refrigerant can only be used in the same system or other systems owned by the same person, or it can be reclaimed by an EPA certified reclaimer before resale. It cannot be resold "used" as it comes out of a unit.

Seems like the second tech had his head screwed on right, with one exception. You cannot use vaccum to perform proper leak checks. If it doesn't hold a vacuum at all, sure, you have a leak, but holding at ~28" of Hg for a 15 minute low side gage check doesn't tell you anything.

Tommy

 

[Aileron]

that unit HAS to have a high side gauge on it to check the charge to measure subcooling.
Whats really screwed up is,how did the first tech only install 1# of refrigerant and it wound up being 5# over charged. That means it was 4#s overcharged for 5 years. If the first tech actually put the overcharge gas in it then he shorted his company 4#. Did someone install this syetm when it was cold out? tehy may have tried to trim the charge in low ambiant. NOW why didn't anyone clean the coil to begin with? That's in plain eyesight.

The condenser coils needs attention every year if not every few weeks in the summer when the cottonwood flies. Need to clean it every year. its basically your outdoor air filter. Some of them are splits also. They are back to back coils , outside can look clean but the inner may be wearing a wool sweater were they are sandwiched together. Best for a tech to clean those for the experienced so the headers don't get destroyed trying to spread them.

To answer the original question NO, the high side does not look to be a a heat pump. It looks like the indoor coil can be used with a heat pump as some can but it looks like the outdoor unit is cooling only, Kind of suprised with a hot water heating coil they didnt put a heat pump high side in it for cooler temps. I am assuming with that indoor unit there is a boiler for heat operation.

 

[mikedodge]

I had the same thing happen to me once. I didn't really like the story line that it was just "too hard to find and fix". I called another HVAC guy and he found the leak in about 15 minutes. It was right at the service connections and likely caused by the other outfit when they serviced it last! So he fixed it for me and became my new HVAC guy.

That's also what happened to us. We had a problem a year or two after getting a new unit installed. The company who put it in gave some b.s. excuse about having to charge several hours to find the leak and it would only be covered if it was at the unit and they didn't want to start there first. That raised a red flag so we called another company who sells the same brand and they said the leak on new install is almost always at the service connection and sure enough it was and minimal price.

Unfortunately the second company has since changed management and if your equipment is out if warranty they say it's time to replace. They tried to sell us a new furnace when it was a faulty breaker causing the problem.