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who trains these service techs? wild diagnostics here

T

toplessHO

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Joined
Oct 20, 2014
Messages
14,145
Location
central florida
travel trailer AC unit went south.
Under warranty so called a mobile guy to come out rather than drag unit in.
Guy confirmed the unit was out of freon so ordered a replacement.
New unit was put in Monday.
It was a cloudy day yesterday , I turned unit on and ran it for an hour or so
and all seemed OK.Left it with fan on midspeed and turned thermostat midway on cooling.
Today its HOT! 101*
I turned unit to full fan and full cool, and it didnt seem to cool so much.
I could hear compressor kick on,run for a couple minutes and shut off.
Never did cool down and compressor would never run more than 2 minutes on at least 10 minutes off.
I connected an inline watthour meter. Total with fan running but compressor off it was 118v and 3 amps.
With compressor on its 118v and 16 amps.

So I text the service guy and tell him whats up,feeding him the above info.
I get the reply from him"It may have iced up bc its soo hot...and the humidity is like 99%."

I didnt reply with what I was really thinking(like WTF).
So if I understand his way of thinking,Its too hot and humid for the AC to work.

He asked if I could pull cover and see if unit was iced up. I replied I had already left.
Just wondering if theres any certs required to service sealed rooftop units.
 
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Crazyjake8493

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Sep 26, 2014
Messages
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Location
Upstate NY
I was an RV service tech for a year between other jobs and we just replaced those entire rooftop units, we didn't service them in any way as far as messing with refrigerants. Especially under warranty. No certifications required for that.

I also learned just how poorly even a $200+k unit is built, but that's another story. Tons and tons of warranty work.
 
F

fitter30

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Joined
Jun 23, 2019
Messages
3,019
Location
Peace Valley,mo
There are legitimate trade schools and not. Went to Rankin trade school in St.Louis day school 8 hours a day 5 days a week normal school year for two years for hvacr along with hydraulics, math, blueprint, electrical, controls, wiring diagrams and theory. Theory how things work but why and the same with electrical. From motors to controls. Most schools are not as in-depth. Theory has help me fix problem jobs over the years. School also taught work ethic, wore uniforms and had to be on time are your gone.
Worked for a contractor and union that believes in education. From night school 2 nights a week in the winter. Sent to factory schools out of town for a few days to two weeks most of my career. This trade have to have continuing education between tools, refrigerants, controls and licensing.
 
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T

toplessHO

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Joined
Oct 20, 2014
Messages
14,145
Location
central florida
fitter30 said:
There are legitimate trade schools and not. Went to Rankin trade school in St.Louis day school 8 hours a day 5 days a week normal school year for two years for hvacr along with hydraulics, math, blueprint, electrical, controls, wiring diagrams and theory. Theory how things work but why and the same with electrical. From motors to controls. Most schools are not as in-depth. Theory has help me fix problem jobs over the years. School also taught work ethic, wore uniforms and had to be on time are your gone.
Worked for a contractor and union that believes in education. From night school 2 nights a week in the winter. Sent to factory schools out of town for a few days to two weeks most of my career. This trade have to have continuing education between tools, refrigerants, controls and licensing.
Click to expand...
and Im guessing you would never insult the intelligence of a customer telling them
"It may have iced up bc its soo hot...and the humidity is like 99%."
 
B

bonneyman

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Joined
Apr 22, 2010
Messages
8,857
Location
Desert SW
Sadly, most trade schools are light on theory and mainly focused on trial-and-error replacement of suspected parts. I've heard NATE certification was a backlash against typical A/C schools but never worked with any NATE techs so I can't speak to their training.
Sounds like your unit is starving the compressor for freon. It runs a bit, then goes off on the internal overheat stat. After cooling down awhile it might come back on and repeat the cycle. Either the charge on the new unit is low, or there's a restriction preventing proper freon flow back to the compressor. Factory screw up, pinched line, plugged filter strainer, or stuck metering device could cause this. All warranty calls on a new unit. The guy was probably the on-call tech and he's swamped.
 
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fitter30

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Jun 23, 2019
Messages
3,019
Location
Peace Valley,mo
toplessHO said:
and Im guessing you would never insult the intelligence of a customer telling them
"It may have iced up bc its soo hot...and the humidity is like 99%."
Click to expand...
No i wouldn't. On a correctly working evap coil the RH on the coil is 100% that's where the condensate formed. Common problems for ice on a coil low air flow, dirty coil or low on refrigerant. Cooling the air temp is the easy part ( sensible heat) the hard part is latent heat turning RH into condensate. Today's equipment are critical charge off by 10% they might not do the job their intended for.
 
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MrFreeze

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Sep 10, 2020
Messages
41
Location
Seattle, WA
I can comfortably promise you the RH is nowhere near 99%, so whatever other training your guy may or may not have had, he clearly skipped psychrometrics day.

MrFreeze
 
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Jim greengo

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Joined
Sep 3, 2018
Messages
7,415
Location
Behind my house
toplessHO said:
travel trailer AC unit went south.
Under warranty so called a mobile guy to come out rather than drag unit in.
Guy confirmed the unit was out of freon so ordered a replacement.
New unit was put in Monday.
It was a cloudy day yesterday , I turned unit on and ran it for an hour or so
and all seemed OK.Left it with fan on midspeed and turned thermostat midway on cooling.
Today its HOT! 101*
I turned unit to full fan and full cool, and it didnt seem to cool so much.
I could hear compressor kick on,run for a couple minutes and shut off.
Never did cool down and compressor would never run more than 2 minutes on at least 10 minutes off.
I connected an inline watthour meter. Total with fan running but compressor off it was 118v and 3 amps.
With compressor on its 118v and 16 amps.

So I text the service guy and tell him whats up,feeding him the above info.
I get the reply from him"It may have iced up bc its soo hot...and the humidity is like 99%."

I didnt reply with what I was really thinking(like WTF).
So if I understand his way of thinking,Its too hot and humid for the AC to work.

He asked if I could pull cover and see if unit was iced up. I replied I had already left.
Just wondering if theres any certs required to service sealed rooftop units.
Click to expand...
It's a glorified window ac, what did they actually do to the old one?
Tell em if they want you to trouble shoot it yourself you wouldn't need a freaking warranty!
 
D

danski0224

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Joined
Jan 29, 2005
Messages
13,744
Location
Near Naperville, IL
Can't really diagnose it without gauges.

Had a water source heat pump that would turn on but not cool.

Found that the TXV sensing bulb tubing was broken from the factory.

The thermostat was also set up wrong, which caused other issues.
 
9

98ssuck

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 21, 2012
Messages
350
Location
British columbia
danski0224 said:
Can't really diagnose it without gauges.
Click to expand...
That’s true. But the business side the technician job gets in the way of this.

Let’s say he puts gauges on. It’s low on charge or has a plugged metering device. The practical solution is the same, change the unit. A lot of small units calls are basically informing the customer to buy a replacement. Small electrical problems might be worth a repair. There’s no financial sense in repair on the refrigerant circuit on these smaller units
 
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T

toplessHO

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Joined
Oct 20, 2014
Messages
14,145
Location
central florida
the entire reason you have a warranty is this.
Tech spent 2 minutes hearing it run.
He installed a factory fresh unit,which I watched come out of the box.
But asking the customer to get on the roof,pull the cover off and diagnose
is a big reach.If the unit can not cool while its hot and humid,what good is it?
These are sealed units that have no charging ports.
The last one leaked all freon out,whats to say this one isnt low on freon out of the box.
PCustoms said:
Was he an HVAC tech, thermodynamacist or just an RV repair guy?
Click to expand...
RV repair guy whos authorized to warranty these units out by the manufacturer.
 
C

Crazyjake8493

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Joined
Sep 26, 2014
Messages
4,001
Location
Upstate NY
toplessHO said:
RV repair guy whos authorized to warranty these units out by the manufacturer.
Click to expand...
Which is what they're taught to do. I'm not advocating for poor customer service but in the RV tech's defense he probably didn't know any better information to relay. They're sealed units that aren't designed to be recharged, just replaced. When I was briefly in that industry, there was no HVAC certifications. All techs were expected to work on A/C's, furnaces, carpentry, plumbing, roofing, electrical, propane systems, windows, doors, metalwork, oil changes, hitches, brakes, etc.
 
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T

toplessHO

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Joined
Oct 20, 2014
Messages
14,145
Location
central florida
observed the unit going thru a temper tantrum but only when it was the hottest part of day.
With it getting down to 70* at night,as it got hot outside,it would be 80-88* inside.
Compressor would cycle,very consistently 2 min on,5 min off.
Tech ordered a new thermostat which is part of the lower unit that wasnt replaced.
Hopefully that will fix it.
 
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