Question for the HVAC guys

[Mike007]

I'm a small HVAC contractor. I was always a "York Guy". I sold and installed York for 8 years in my own business and for many years as an employee prior. In 8 years I barely had 1 warranty issue in a year, and it was all minor, minor stuff. Then York was bought by Johnson Controls. Warranty issues went from a few, to hundreds in a short time. I had over 40 leaking evap coils and every other problem you can imagine. It got to a point where I couldn't get new equipment on the job without issues right out of the box. It literally almost drove me out of business.

I made the mistake of trying to stick with York for another year or 2 and finally made a quick switch to Westinghouse (Nordyne). I picked Westinghouse because I had sold some Gibson (Nordyne) in the past with no issues and I liked the distributer whom I already had done a lot of business with. Well, now I have issues. Ive had 5 failed Danfoss TXV's, 1 bad right out of the box. Prior to these problems, I only recall getting 1 bad txv since 1990. Ive also had a Westinghouse evap coil leak.

Ive also had a lot of other problems. Installed a Burnham boiler only to find the Honeywell Aqua Stat was bad. Didn't want to leave a 90 year old woman without heat so I jumped through all kinds of hoops late in the day to get the new aquastat....Only to find the second one dead out of the box.

Installed another boiler. Got a call it was flooding the customers house. I had installed a Taco air scoop. Apparently there was an imperfection in the casting and Taco filled it with some kind of filler, sanded it and painted over it. Well, the filler didn't hold.

I'm often getting bad repair parts right out of the box. Last week I traveled a long distance for an OEM blower wheel only to find it so out of balance it was unusable.

I could go on and on. It's really taking the fun and profit out of being in this business for me. My question is, is anyone else seeing a drastic drop in quality control?

 

[Mr onetwo]

I have been a mechanical contractor for many years.....you are right,quality is going downhill.I think more castings and individual parts are coming from China/Mexico(piss poor quality) and being assembled in the US....just a gut feeling.Another example of this country going down the tubes because of the so called "leadership" in Washington.

 

[Highbeam]

Too many of us , me included, price shopping which drives quality down.

 

[truckman5000]

We use nordyne, in a tappan, and gibson series. Minimal issues.

Had alot of problems with trane, york recently. Last 6 years or so.

Have about 2-3 installs a day going so, a good amount of equipment is out there.
Although the switch to Tappan, wasnt liked. Within workers( not name brand as much as others).. Customers only care if it works and has the 10 year- life warren tee.

The problems i had along time ago, was with the TXV. The solution "I" do and others in c.o. do is:
We all know brazing 2" away from the valve isnt good. You need a wet rag ect.

The local weld. shop carries MG400. A low heat/ high strength solder. This works wonders with the TXv replacements or conversions, with the joints rite at the valve.

And the tappan line through the local supplier we deal with is around 1k less a "system" than previous trane. This gets more jobs.

The gas c.o here uses American standard, and burnham. No issues with the A.S....wired because its trane...
Burnham, has issues. With said controls. Especially the alpine cont. board.

And yes quality is getting alot worse.

The worst thing is you bust *** all day to get someone up and running, the new unit needs something. THATS beyond your install. And the costumer thinks you/ your guy, is an idiot ect. Then they ***** and moan.


Heres a good one. Did a job. That was spec trane (roof top units). 1 was trane, 3 others were different colored ( american standard). With the A.S. sticker and obviously the factory just put a trane sticker over the A.S. sticker. LOL....this didnt go over to well..Talk about quality control.

 

[JimL]

Changed 3 indoor coils last week, less than a year old.

Coil leaks are a problem among a bunch of manufacturers.

I do Tempstar, Bryant, and Carrier.

 

[pop pop]

Are you seeing tubing leaks or joint leaks?

 

[Justin83]

I work in Canada and mostly work on comercial HVAC/R but when I do side jobs I only use Payne. I believe, It's a sister company to Carrier. Haven't had any problems with their product. They have a graet warranty and alot cheaper than the competitor.

 

[Mike007]

Are you seeing tubing leaks or joint leaks?

Here is the strange part that took me a while to figure out with the York Blue-Fin coils. They will only leak when the system is running and the coil is cold. I always like to see the leak or at least verify it with a pressure test. The coils I tested will hold 250lbs of nitrogen at room temp indefinitely. No BS. So I assume the leaks are in the tubes.

Initially when I would get the calls, I would disable the blower and run the AC. I'd then insert my leak detector probe in the pan and it would go off. At some point my local York tech guy told me to expect 100% failure of these coils. So now as soon as I get the call I just order the new coil. Then when it's installed I leak test the rest of the system with a pressure test then with a micron gauge.

 

[BD1]

Here is the strange part that took me a while to figure out with the York Blue-Fin coils. They will only leak when the system is running and the coil is cold. I always like to see the leak or at least verify it with a pressure test. The coils I tested will hold 250lbs of nitrogen at room temp indefinitely. No BS. So I assume the leaks are in the tubes.

Initially when I would get the calls, I would disable the blower and run the AC. I'd then insert my leak detector probe in the pan and it would go off. At some point my local York tech guy told me to expect 100% failure of these coils. So now as soon as I get the call I just order the new coil. Then when it's installed I leak test the rest of the system with a pressure test then with a micron gauge.

Is this with R-22 ? 410 A ? We only can get 410 A equipment and it ***** ! we test at 600 and then use the micron gauge. This is a problem especially with mechanical
connections.

 

[Ron Lombardo]

....FUNNY YOU ASK ! ... yes I have seen a drastic drop in quality with all the manufactures but YORK/ Johnson Controls is the worst. I will not use them on large Projects. We respect the job with Carrier and Trane ... of which also has quality issues ...but we purchase the labor warranty ... which takes care of the COST issue. For small residential we use GOODMAN ..we installed in a dormitory 200 1-3 tom splits and had 3 minor issues and they paid us to fix the issues.

So back to YORK ...we purchase 2 - 170 ton chillers and 4 - 60 ton air handlers ... we had one bad VFD and they would not come to the site to fix it under warranty ..they wanted a purchase order ... i told the engineer and customer ...sot he responded ...this equipment cost 535k and they wanted a PO for 800.00 in case it was not warranty.

So yes made in USA Texas ...means MEXICO and the work ethic, tardiness and quality control ***** in MEXICO ...these big companies are moving back to the USA because of this.

Moral to the story by the labor warranty, offer it as a sales pitch to the customer and cover your ***.

ROn

 

[JimL]

Are you seeing tubing leaks or joint leaks?

Formicary corrosion is what they are saying causes the leaks. Most of the leaks I see are in the middle of the slabs. Usually towards the back of the coils.

 

[JimL]

So yes made in USA Texas ...means MEXICO and the work ethic, tardiness and quality control ***** in MEXICO ...these big companies are moving back to the USA because of this.

ROn

I have a friend that works at a machine shop in Indy. They build a lot of parts for Caterpillar. Cat is basically begging them to take on more and more parts. Cat is moving parts from mexico to being made here in the US again.. Can't get the quality down there..

Makes me feel good to know at least one company, a large one at that, has recognized the quality issues.

 

[Jackfre]

I have been a mechanical contractor for many years.....you are right,quality is going downhill.I think more castings and individual parts are coming from China/Mexico(piss poor quality) and being assembled in the US....just a gut feeling.Another example of this country going down the tubes because of the so called "leadership" in Washington.

I think it funny that we blame poor quality on the Chinese/Mexican's. They are manuf/selling a product that is being spec'd by American engineers and their companies (Taco and Honeywell in this example). Those American companies are responsible for not having sufficient QC on site to ensure that the products meet the design criteria or more worrying, inferior engineering in the first place. This is all to common today. I think what you see is that the US companies are willing to tolerate this level of service and failure to achieve the "ultra-lowest price" that Wal Mart and the American consumer feel they have a right to. It seems today that all we hear about is "low price". No one is talking about the "value proposition" of the purchase and the concept that it is "worth the extra cost to make it right and make it so it will last". Today we talk about buying the extra warranty to protect yourself from the inferior goods that you know you are selling or buying. Weird isn't it?

 

[lzenglish]

I have since looked into this Leaky Evap. Coil Problem, and it appears to me the R&D Engineers dropped the ball on this one. If I'm reading this correct, the new Refrigerant Oils are making a caustic envirnment with the newer Refrigerants, to cause this pitting problem, and the only known sure fix is to go with an all Aluminum Evaporator, is that correct? Thanks to "Mike007" for bringing this to my/our attention! Below are just 3 of the articles I found pertaining to this problem this evening.


http://yorkcentral.net/content/media/2/20071009-Evaporator Coil Leak Issue.swf

http://www.heynordyne.com/10/11/aluminum-coils

http://www.chemicalprocessing.com/articles/2005/584.html

Wayne

 

[Mike007]

I have since looked into this Leaky Evap. Coil Problem, and it appears to me the R&D Engineers dropped the ball on this one. If I'm reading this correct, the new Refrigerant Oils are making a caustic envirnment with the newer Refrigerants, to cause this pitting problem, and the only known sure fix is to go with an all Aluminum Evaporator, is that correct? Thanks to "Mike007" for bringing this to my/our attention! Below are just 3 of the articles I found pertaining to this problem this evening.


http://yorkcentral.net/content/media/2/20071009-Evaporator Coil Leak Issue.swf

http://www.heynordyne.com/10/11/aluminum-coils

http://www.chemicalprocessing.com/articles/2005/584.html

Wayne

No the oil being the problem is BS. What I found most disturbing about the situation that ultimately caused me to turn my back on York forever, York knew about this problem. In typical York fashion, they deny deny deny. They continued to tell contractors the problem was fixed and continued selling the coils. Then literally overnight it was announced the problem was really fixed, they had closed the coil plant in Mexico and are now making the new coils in Norman Oklahoma because of quality control issues in Mexico. I simply refuse to believe they were able to start manufacturing the coils in Norman overnight. And the fact that they closed the plant in Mexico is further evidence there were big problems and they knew about them.

As predicted, I have had 100% failure rate of these coils made in Mexico. The new US made coils have been fine. And most of the systems of mine that leaked were R-22. So it's not an oil issue.

 

[JakeKohl]

I think it funny that we blame poor quality on the Chinese/Mexican's. They are manuf/selling a product that is being spec'd by American engineers and their companies (Taco and Honeywell in this example). Those American companies are responsible for not having sufficient QC on site to ensure that the products meet the design criteria or more worrying, inferior engineering in the first place. This is all to common today. I think what you see is that the US companies are willing to tolerate this level of service and failure to achieve the "ultra-lowest price" that Wal Mart and the American consumer feel they have a right to. It seems today that all we hear about is "low price". No one is talking about the "value proposition" of the purchase and the concept that it is "worth the extra cost to make it right and make it so it will last". Today we talk about buying the extra warranty to protect yourself from the inferior goods that you know you are selling or buying. Weird isn't it?

Agreed - too many US companies thought that you could just have parts made in other countries and go about business as usual - in many cases doing less QC than if they had the part made at a vendor across town usually because the batches are bigger. You can't do that. There are companies that know how to manage overseas manufacturing and have been very successful with it.

 

[Full Throttle]

Been in the bussiness for near 15 years now, none of this is new to me. It has gotten way outa hand with 410 on the leaks, EXV valve really, another mode of failure.

 

[Mike007]

I'm in my 13th year in business. My frustration is to the point I really want out. I canceled a job yesterday so I could replace a TXV on a system I installed 2 weeks ago. 2 weeks ago it ran perfectly, the TXV was maintaining 14* superheat. And I charged it to 10* subcooling which is what the manufacturer called for. The TXV failed closed, which in itself is rather odd, but it's happened a few times now. When all is said and done, I go to the home diagnose the problem, run and get the TXV, install it, and return the old one, Ive got an entire day ******* in this thing.

And heres the kicker. The new TXV is running 0* super heat. It's the same problem I had with another TXV on a different system last week. I talked to the manufacturer, in a round about way they acknowledged they may have had a few bad ones go out. At this point I'm infuriated. I'm going to either have to change over to a fixed metering device or get a TXV from another source. It never ends.

 

[brewchief]

We've had a few leaky coils and a few bad TXVs, two in the past couple weeks have failed closed on heat pumps, both around 5 years old.



Sent from my SPH-D600 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Mike007]

As a small company, how can you make a living? With a bigger company at least you can still generate income while fixing the issues.

 

[JimL]

Haven't had any txv issues yet.. Knock on wood!

 

[HVAC Phil]

Call backs on faulty equiptment is a *****. I install Comfortmaker and ever since Carrier purchased them i have slowly seen a drop in quality. In the past year, i've had 2 coils leaking water all over the furnace. I'll be damned what is was, drain pan etc. Swapped out the a-coil, problem went away. I couldn't see any defect in the drain pan. Basically it's a whole day to pick up new coil, pump down unit, cut flue pipes, swap coil out of the box, then re-install everything. Before Carrier was involved, never had a drain pan issue before.

 

[JimL]

All day to change a coil? The 3 we changed last week, we did in one day. 2 people, in and out in less than an hour on all 3 of them.

I have found on some carriers, the manifold on the suction line in the coil case is pushed too far forward. Water runs down the insulation and out the front of the coil. It needs bent back and wrapped in insulation/foam/cork. Only noticed it in down flows though. Just something to watch for.

 

[Mike007]

All day to change a coil? The 3 we changed last week, we did in one day. 2 people, in and out in less than an hour on all 3 of them.

You are cutting corners and or exaggerating. In less then 1 hour you are driving to the residence, determining the problem, pumping down or recovering the refrigerant if the LLD is factory installed, removing any flue piping, removing the coil, running to the supplier, getting the new coil, filling out the warranty paperwork, returning to the job, replacing the coil, changing the LLD, pulling a proper vacuum, putting everything back together, charging the system, packing your tools up and then driving out......All in less then 1 hour?

 

[pop pop]

You are cutting corners and or exaggerating. In less then 1 hour you are driving to the residence, determining the problem, pumping down or recovering the refrigerant if the LLD is factory installed, removing any flue piping, removing the coil, running to the supplier, getting the new coil, filling out the warranty paperwork, returning to the job, replacing the coil, changing the LLD, pulling a proper vacuum, putting everything back together, charging the system, packing your tools up and then driving out......All in less then 1 hour?

Naw, he didn't find it necessary to pull a proper vacuum nor check his work for leaks. He'll get another call in 5 or 6 weeks and can bill again!

 

[brewchief]

You are cutting corners and or exaggerating. In less then 1 hour you are driving to the residence, determining the problem, pumping down or recovering the refrigerant if the LLD is factory installed, removing any flue piping, removing the coil, running to the supplier, getting the new coil, filling out the warranty paperwork, returning to the job, replacing the coil, changing the LLD, pulling a proper vacuum, putting everything back together, charging the system, packing your tools up and then driving out......All in less then 1 hour?

Depending on the equipment 2 guys in and out in an hour isn't impossible by any means. We would submit warranty online when we found a bad coil, supplier ships a coil, we arrive at jobsite and time starts,
5 min to meet and great customer
One guy heads in to start opening coil up/cut flues if needed/cut drain /etc.
Second guy heads outside to pump unit down or in the case of units with a LLD on the wrong side of the service valves start evacuating the unit into a clean recovery tank for reuse. Outside guy would also get nitrogen and vacuum pump ready. If all goes well this can be done in 10-15 min.

Swapping the coil is only a couple min job once everything is ready and there should only be a couple braze joints, as soon as it's brazed a quick pressure test(I'll hit the braze joints with bubbles if I'm in a hurry so I don't have to wait very long with the nitrogen).

I've got a 8cfm vacuum pump that will have most systems below 500 microns in 15-20 min.

Dump the refrigerant back in and adjust the charge if needed.

An hour is possible with two guys if everything goes well and the unit doesn't have a LLD in the wrong location and you don't have to chase after anything, I think our normal time is more like 2 1/2-3 hours and that is without having to deal with warranty paperwork.

If your spending a day doing a coil I think you need to try to change the way you do them to cut out the time spent driving back and forth to the supply house, do your suppliers not deliver?

 

[pop pop]

Just from memory, 500 microns won't meet Carrier's specification.

 

[Full Throttle]

the way I run bussiness 2 men on the job is 2 billable hours for every hour on the job. so yeah 2 menfor an hour and 1/2 or so = 2-3 hours for 1.


500 microns is acceptable for 410 and 134-A. I personally won't put a system back in operation till I meet 250, but I work on 1000-1500 ton centrifugal chillers and 2-500 ton screw machines.

 

[Mike007]

Depending on the equipment 2 guys in and out in an hour isn't impossible by any means. We would submit warranty online when we found a bad coil, supplier ships a coil, we arrive at jobsite and time starts,
5 min to meet and great customer
One guy heads in to start opening coil up/cut flues if needed/cut drain /etc.
Second guy heads outside to pump unit down or in the case of units with a LLD on the wrong side of the service valves start evacuating the unit into a clean recovery tank for reuse. Outside guy would also get nitrogen and vacuum pump ready. If all goes well this can be done in 10-15 min.

Swapping the coil is only a couple min job once everything is ready and there should only be a couple braze joints, as soon as it's brazed a quick pressure test(I'll hit the braze joints with bubbles if I'm in a hurry so I don't have to wait very long with the nitrogen).

I've got a 8cfm vacuum pump that will have most systems below 500 microns in 15-20 min.

Dump the refrigerant back in and adjust the charge if needed.

An hour is possible with two guys if everything goes well and the unit doesn't have a LLD in the wrong location and you don't have to chase after anything, I think our normal time is more like 2 1/2-3 hours and that is without having to deal with warranty paperwork.

If your spending a day doing a coil I think you need to try to change the way you do them to cut out the time spent driving back and forth to the supply house, do your suppliers not deliver?

So.....Did the leak find itself or did someone have to drive to the job and determine there was a leak? There goes an hour right there in most cases. Is your supplier waiting while the old coil is pulled and taking away the old one?

Face it, now matter how you slice it you are not investing only an hour in replacing a warranty coil even if it's 2 seriously motivated guys. And where do you find guys like that?

 

[JimL]

You are cutting corners and or exaggerating. In less then 1 hour you are driving to the residence, determining the problem, pumping down or recovering the refrigerant if the LLD is factory installed, removing any flue piping, removing the coil, running to the supplier, getting the new coil, filling out the warranty paperwork, returning to the job, replacing the coil, changing the LLD, pulling a proper vacuum, putting everything back together, charging the system, packing your tools up and then driving out......All in less then 1 hour?

Call for no cool, Charge system, order coil.

Waited till all 3 coils came in for that week.
Show up, one person pumps down, hook up vac pump, while other pulls coil door, cuts flues and drain if needed, keep no hub fittings on truck.
We use Stabrite 8 solder, un solder connections. Pull coil. Put new in.
New drier inside, where we always put them.
Doors back on, solder.
Turn pump on, wait, I know each one pulled down to less that 200 microns.
Open valves, check charge, add as needed. Leave. Warranty paper work was done on a slower day.

All 3 were within a 5 mile radius.

Probably had more than an hour if you count the first stop at the house.

 

[brewchief]

So.....Did the leak find itself or did someone have to drive to the job and determine there was a leak? There goes an hour right there in most cases. Is your supplier waiting while the old coil is pulled and taking away the old one?

Face it, now matter how you slice it you are not investing only an hour in replacing a warranty coil even if it's 2 seriously motivated guys. And where do you find guys like that?

Service guy would have found the leak on a previous call and ordered a coil at that point, if a slow leaker they might add refrigerant to keep unit running properly until we return.

We very rarely have to return parts that we warranty, probably 99% are field scrapped after we get credit, Lennox does make that pretty easy.

I agree that total time spent is going to be way more then an hour, total manhours is probably closer to 5-6 if you add everything up from the initial service call until credit is issued.

 

[JimL]

Naw, he didn't find it necessary to pull a proper vacuum nor check his work for leaks. He'll get another call in 5 or 6 weeks and can bill again!

Thats hack work.. Checked for leaks before when the system was low. I trust my solder joints. Doesn't take that long to change a coil when if is installed in a way that makes it easy to service. May end up going back, after all we did put in the same made in mexico POS that was there before...

Here is some of our "hack work"

Lets see some of yours!

 

[brewchief]

I'm bad about remembering to take pics but here are a few.

 

[JimL]

Glad to see someone else uses metal for transitions. Looks good. We don't use purple primer cause I think it looks like ****. Don't like flex connectors either but every once in a while we have to use them.

No AC on the first?

I usually forget the pics, usually ready to get the heck out of there!

 

[Mike007]

Call for no cool, Charge system, order coil.

Waited till all 3 coils came in for that week.
Show up, one person pumps down, hook up vac pump, while other pulls coil door, cuts flues and drain if needed, keep no hub fittings on truck.
We use Stabrite 8 solder, un solder connections. Pull coil. Put new in.
New drier inside, where we always put them.
Doors back on, solder.
Turn pump on, wait, I know each one pulled down to less that 200 microns.
Open valves, check charge, add as needed. Leave. Warranty paper work was done on a slower day.

All 3 were within a 5 mile radius.

Probably had more than an hour if you count the first stop at the house.

All that said, I don't believe you are in and out the door in less then an hour. How long does it take you to pull a vacuum under 200 microns? I ve got a good new pump and vacuum set up and it takes me at least of 15 minutes. And how much time are you spending charging the system?

 

[brewchief]

Glad to see someone else uses metal for transitions. Looks good. We don't use purple primer cause I think it looks like ****. Don't like flex connectors either but every once in a while we have to use them.

No AC on the first?

I usually forget the pics, usually ready to get the heck out of there!

95% of the duct systems around here are metal, not much fuzzduct or flex, inspectors here don't require purple primer but sure seem to prefer it.

It's pretty rare to see a system with a flex connector in the ductwork around here, we've always felt it help reduce noise so we put them in.

IIRC the job in the first pic had A/C but it came out the back and we either kept the existing A/C or simply ran the new one the same way, a lot of times it's easier to transition to the old ductwork if you don't use a cased coil so we only use them on jobs that we know have plenty of room.

 

[JimL]

We always use cased coils, height problems we use a N coil. Always get a media filter too. Figured into the job, not an option.

Always good to see metal. Duct board is garbage. Transitions made of duct board are even worse.

New codes around here want us to use duct sealer I think it makes a nice install look like ****.

 

[BD1]

I noticed your vac pump connected outside. I always install schraders by
the evap coil inside. This way if mosquito's are bad outside I can go inside.

 

[HVAC Phil]

All day to change a coil? The 3 we changed last week, we did in one day. 2 people, in and out in less than an hour on all 3 of them.

I have found on some carriers, the manifold on the suction line in the coil case is pushed too far forward. Water runs down the insulation and out the front of the coil. It needs bent back and wrapped in insulation/foam/cork. Only noticed it in down flows though. Just something to watch for.

I change them myself, not in a big hurry. No reason for 2 guys on a 1 man job. I let the guys go out and make more money while i try to do the warranty work, so it isn't a total loss.

 

[Mike007]

I give up. Installed 3 York Affinity systems 2 years ago. This is Yorks top of the line system. Went out for an annual check up today. 2 out of the 3 are low on refrigerant. What a joke.

Ive also decided to completely give up on using TXV's going forward. Too many problems. FYI, Ive had problems with both Danfoss and Sporlan recently. Ive had more warranty issues in the last 2 years then the previous 19 years in the trade.