Leaking Evaporator Question

[ron32]

I had my furnace and evaporator coil replaced November 17, 2006. It got hot in my last night so I turned on the AC and I noticed that it didn’t seem to be cooling so I turned the system off and went into the attic to see if the vapor line coming from the coil was cool, that’s when I heard a noise that sounded like a flat tire. It appears that the small liquid line going to the evaporator is leaking at the point where it was welded. I could not tell if it was sucking air in or leaking Freon out, it seems to be sucking in when I put my finger around the line the noise stopped a little.

I’m not a DIY. I just would like to know the correct procedure for correcting this type of mistake, before I call the contractor who installed it out to fix it. Like for instance is he suppose the vent the whole system, fix and test the weld or is it okay for him to just try to fix the weld?. Seems to me if it was leaking the whole system is possibly contaminated with air and should be vented.

The contractor who did the job was the lowest bidder and the least experience and he was not my choice. I was forced to use him by my real estate agent because she had to pay the bill to resolve a mistake she made in the sells contract so, she found the cheapest person she could get.

I would appreciate any feedback

[rlj1117]

the correct procedure would be to recover existing refrigerant,repair leak,either add or replace drier,pull vacuum using a good micron guage and re-charge per mfg specs.hope this helps

[gevans]

rlj1117 gave good advice. Don't let the "lowest bidder" tell you that it is OK to just patch the hole and recharge the system. It will probably work fine NOW, but he will be setting you up for early system failure.

[hvaclover]

Real estate ageent, land lord, and el cheapos.

What would we do with out them.

[ron32]

Originally posted by rlj1117
the correct procedure would be to recover existing refrigerant,repair leak,either add or replace drier,pull vacuum using a good micron guage and re-charge per mfg specs.hope this helps


That's what I thought the general procedure should be. So when he comes out, I'll be watching to see what he actually does.


Questions.

1. Should he have changed the drier when he replaced the coil two weeks ago?

2.Is it common pratice to close the liquid line valve on the condensor and open the vapor line valve on the condensor turn on the the AC and pump all the freon into the condensor, then close both valves. Then make repairs to the evaportor coil, because that's the way he did it the first time. He said he pressure checked the welds before he pulled a vacuum on the lines. Is that a safe and standard pratice or was that a shortcut. Seems to me like that could damage the condensor componets.

Thank for the response

[rlj1117]

any time you open the system the drier should be changed,as far as pumping freon back to condenser depends on whether there was a leak in the sysytem prior to changing evap, if leaking evap was the reason for replacing then he should have removed all freon ,replaced evap replaced drier,pulled vacuum and re-charged