Need help with evap icing, filter ok

[halfhandy]

Getting a service guy in my area is an act of congress. The story is all the same. They are busy. The first hot day of the season, everybody's AC does not work, so they are swamped with calls. So I have ended up fixing the thing myself. Not this time, maybe you can help me.

My unit is a long out of business Williamson five ton heat pump. The heat pump never worked, but I did not figure that out until just after the one year warranty. BTW, remember the AC guys being too busy to come out? I bought the unit and installed it myself, it is a five in one, Ok, stop laughing, I fell for the marketing hype. I really did think that a factory assembled unit would be worth scrapping a perfectly good five year old oil furnace. The AC part came with precharged components, including the lines, so I just connected it all together, and it has worked reasonable well since 1984.

The second season, the AC was dead. Turned out the high pressure limit switch was tripped. I pushed the button, and all was well. It tripped because the reversing valxe never worked, so when I tried to use the heat pump, it immediately tripped. Since I never really needed the heat pump, I lived with it.

In its lifetime, I have replaced the contactor, and a plenum control. No biggies.

On a few ocaisions in the past, I had the evaporator ice up. My bad, time to clean the filter. Funny how those things can slip your mind.

Not this time. To be sure, I took the filter out, checked all of the ducts, returns and vents, all unblocked. And the air flow seems to be normal.

The A coil starts to ice up from the bottom. After twenty something years, I thought perhaps it might just be dirty since all of tha air goes through it. I was able to remove an end panel and looked. Nice and clean. I shot some compressed air through it, no problem.

My research indicated that the most likely culprit is an undercharge. Why now? Is it normal for a twenty something year old unit to lose freon without an obvious leak? I have not seen any evidence of a leak, but I do not have a set of manifold gauages. I used to when I installed after market AC systems in cars decades ago. No AC technician talent needed for that, I am living proof.

Could the true reason for "why now" be that I am replacing this entire unit with another located in a new addition later this year, and only need it to operate for about half the summer? The new unit has dedicated ducts to the ceilings.

Anyway, the A coil ices up, starting at the bottom, about four inches pretty quickly, then gradually works its way up the coil, taking several hours to complete the journey.

I know it is not technology correct to just squirt in a little more freon like we can do in auto systems, but I wonder if this is possible and worth a try in the absense of having a competant repairman available. I am sure the government frowns on it. Hey, I am half handy for a reason. It would sure be nice to get this thing working for the weekend. In any event, I will try, try again to get an AC guy here Tuesday, but I am leaving Wednesday for a week, and don't want to leave the family behind sweltering. Can't help the trip, something has to pay the bills.

Thanks for your help.

[comfort comando]

in most situations 20 yrs. is at the end of the life span for most a/c or h/p's. the precharged line sets had leaking problems, they are no longer used. best advice get a reputable contractor to look at it. if you go down the replacement road get several quotes. for most of us the price of a good a/c is not cheep. good luck

[halfhandy]

Would that I could. Cheap has never been a criteria for me. Remember the part about replacing a nearly new furnace so I could get what I thought was the best unit available? As usual, I will blow my brains out on the new unit, getting the latest and greatest. AC never fails in the winter, of that you can be sure.

[lynn comstock]

Yes, there is not enough refrigerant getting into the evaporator coil. Adding gas will help. You may or may not have a leak. A leak may or may not leave a visible trace. You can probably get an EPA certification by taking a simple test and be legal. It is illegal to sell refrigerant to someone who does not have the EPA license. Best advice. Call a pro.

[halfhandy]

Pro equals best advice. You are preaching to the choir on that one. I have seen the licensing requiremends and have no doubt I could get the license, just been too preoccupied with other things, and the last thing in the world I want to do is fix my own AC.

[rohalon]

I think it's called Murphy's Law.

[jasond1011]

imagine the money you could have saved and the enjoyment you could have had if a pro had installed your system originally. imagine the money you could have made out doing your job while a lic ac pro did his for you. i imagine the real bottom line is you are not willing to pay a professional to come out and fix your unit. if you were the heat pump would have been fixed in the first few days of ownership.

[halfhandy]

Please feel free to imagine anything you want, or to call me a liar right to may face if you wish. I did not have it professionaly installed because of a lack of folks available to do it, period. Believe it or not. The fact is, doing it myself was the most expensive option. It wasn't too much fun either.

[acmech13]

you should have called a pro as soon as you realized it wasn't working correctly. they woulda been to your house already. Where i work we are swamped. friday we had to reshedule all our start ups and just do service calls. i ended up working till 1 am. i worked most of today. its first come first serve. last thing you want to tell them is you installed it yourself. alot of companies in my area will blackball u once you tell them that. your unit freezing doe not always mean you have lost your r-22. other factors can cause a ac unit that hasn't been maintained in 20 years. you do know by not having a unit installed by a professional you have no warrenty

[halfhandy]

What other factors?

[acmech13]

other factory that only a tech with proper test tools can find

[subcooled_]

"You may or may not have a leak." lynn comstock:rolleyes:

If it's low, it was either never charged properly, or it has a leak. As stated, those precharged line sets are junk and always leak eventually.

Your going to have to call a pro as you've already investigated everything you can on your own. A tech can hook up gauges and check superheat/subcooling to check the charge. If it's not that low, you can top it off and be fine. That being said, there's no way to tell how quickly it will leak out again.

[seatonheating]

What a dumb thread!!!


You do realize you did this to yourself didn't you? When your car breaks down for lack of maintenance do you blame the manufacturer or the mechanics?

I'm not buying your B.S. about not being able to find somebody, just isn't true, I don't care how convincing you try to be. You aren't going to get any technical help here so quit asking. It's against site rules!!

Now get on the phone and get a pro out there. I'll betcha you could get someone out there today if you tried hard enough. Being that you waited til the last minute, be prepared to pay out your azz.

[halfhandy]

Hi sh, nice to meet you. Yup, self inflicted never argued that. Buy what you will, the price is right. As for site rules, mea culpa, but I will let a moderator decide that. Please tell me the secret of getting a bloke out here on Saturday afternoon on a holiday weekend.

[seatonheating]

You call them. Like I said, have your wallet ready.

[Shophound]

There's always a dirty blower wheel after over twenty years of running around and around and around and around in the same fixed circle over and over and over. Clean ones work wonders for airflow.

[badbillr]

when you call to get service, just say you will be paying in cash and if you can get here quickly, there's a cash tip waiting. CASH always lubricates the wheels of business!!:D

[acmech13]

its could be your flux capacitor is off?

[halfhandy]

Interesting place here. A few good hearted souls rendered some real fine technical advice, which is much appreciated, and quite helpful. Here's hoping I can return the favor sometime, and that you will never need it.

Then we have those who seem to dislike candor and pedigree, and are for some reason miffed that I did it myself so long ago. The fact is, I am pretty proud of myself for installing this system and having it work as well as it has for as long as it has. Perhaps if I merely mentioned that I had a twenty something year old unit that will soon be replaced, but that I had this problem, and I would like to do what I could to get through the holiday weekend before I could get someone in to fix it, you would not have been so quick to pounce. Maybe I could have cried poverty and the need to keep a sick child comfortable. However, since the cat is out of the bag, point the finger, and pounce away. Some of you seem to feel pretty good that I am in some way going to be punished by having to bear some expense, likely well out of proportion to the service to be rendered. I'm glad I could make your day. I wonder if that is indicative of your industry.

I knew I should have kept the spare flux capacitor. There is nothing like a good fluxing to cure what's broke.

I never thought about cleaning the squirrel cage. Change the belt, oil the bearings, but never see what is right in front of me.

[comfort comando]

doesnt mater what the time or day is some one is out there that wants to make some money. so let your fingers do the walkin. this is why we are on call and i got one at 4am on Christmas morning two years ago.

[halfhandy]

Now that is interesting cc. I am kind of a night person myself, but 4AM is a glutton for punishment. Although here I am a little past 2AM gorging myself on AC posts here on this forum.

I think the Gods are smiling on me. The temps have cooled off and the forcast seems to be a bit milder in the coming week. Must have been the little old lady I helped across the street when I was a boy scout.

[badbillr]

I think it's cool you installed your own a/c and has kept it running for 20 years plus, good job! I pretty much fix EVERYTHING at my place, and it seems like my friends places as well!:p I think you were pounced upon because you would fall under the category of "DIY".

[acmech13]

good luck with your unit man. i had 6 calls yesterday. they were all called in yesterday. you need service someone will be there.

[halfhandy]

Thanks bb, and a13, I wished you serviced my area.

I got a temporary fix. I had to stay up til 4 AM, but being the resourceful guy I am, figured it out.

Did I just squirt in some 134? Figuring that any old refridgerant would at least make it work somewhat for awhile? Even though I know it would royally mess up some hapless repairman's recovery? Or knowing that not being licensed I could just vent it into the atmosphere with impunity? Nope, I didn't do that.

Did I get the old refridgerator I have that is headed for the dump and jury rig a tube to that and transfer its refridgerant into my sick AC? After all, R22, is R22, isn't it? Nope, I didn't do that.

Actualy, I didn't even consider any of those options. I went decidedly low tech. I opened a window. Temps dropped to low seventies from high eighties, someone likes me besided my mom.

There is this one room though. It gets a lot of solar gain. Luvit in the snow. I found a low tech solution for that too. I closed the door.

Insert chuckles here. Looks like the green one with the big teeth will do.

[Shophound]

Insert chuckles here. Looks like the green one with the big teeth will do.

You mean this guy?

:D :D :D :D

Or Snuffy?

http://www.hvac-talk.com/images/snuffy.gif


Except he ain't got big teeth showing. Oh well. :D

[dngtig]

Thanks bb, and a13, I wished you serviced my area.

I got a temporary fix. I had to stay up til 4 AM, but being the resourceful guy I am, figured it out.

Did I just squirt in some 134? Figuring that any old refridgerant would at least make it work somewhat for awhile? Even though I know it would royally mess up some hapless repairman's recovery? Or knowing that not being licensed I could just vent it into the atmosphere with impunity? Nope, I didn't do that.

Did I get the old refridgerator I have that is headed for the dump and jury rig a tube to that and transfer its refridgerant into my sick AC? After all, R22, is R22, isn't it? Nope, I didn't do that.

Actualy, I didn't even consider any of those options. I went decidedly low tech. I opened a window. Temps dropped to low seventies from high eighties, someone likes me besided my mom.

There is this one room though. It gets a lot of solar gain. Luvit in the snow. I found a low tech solution for that too. I closed the door.

Insert chuckles here. Looks like the green one with the big teeth will do.
Your old refrigerator has R12 in it not R22. Yes you have a dinosaur of a unit,but call someone on tuesday and have them come out and charge it up or see what it needs. Where do you live that nobody will service you?

[halfhandy]

I do not have an old refridgerator, it was humor. I suppose it ranks right up there with leaving the refridgerator door open to keep cool.

New England. I have a call in today, and their answering system gave me the option of calling another number if it was a real emergency, but I didn't. I hope I get a call back tomorrow.

[halfhandy]

They called back at 7:15 this morning, said the guy would be here at 9:00. He showed up exactly then, took an hour an a half, four pounds of freon, and a little over a hundred bucks. And they are drooling over doing my new install. And he did not give me any crap about my pedigree :D . Half handy is whole happy. They should have charged me more for labor though.

[subcooled_]

:) That's cheap. Did they find the leak?

[halfhandy]

No, and he looked. There was no evidence of a leak. He was very suspicious of the rusted area at the bottom of the coil. He had a good grasp of disimiliar metals and electrolysis. It was a place I would not have thought to look. He did carefully check the connections at each end of the line set as they are not soldered.

I thought he was more than reasonable.

[acmech13]

he shoulda sold u superseal if he couldn't find the leak.. how did he look with bubbles or he break out an leak detector? Or does he just wanna make more money selling you more r-22 a month from now who knows. good luck man. i never add without finding the leak or installing supers seal.

[halfhandy]

What is super seal? Functions like stop leak in your car radiator?

I did not see what effort he put into finding the leak. He struck me as a competant and honorable fellow.

Could not losing four pounds in twenty something years be an acceptable loss? With the precharged tubing, is it possible to have started off undercharged? If the tubing connections were brazed, then maybe no loss would be expected. But with threaded connections, who knows?

[Shophound]

It's possible your system saw very little leakage in the past nineteen years, but at year twenty you've sprung a leak.

Oh, and bag the super seal. Either get the leak found and repaired or replace the component that is leaking if it is too far gone to repair.

[subcooled_]

I was told that super seal works by hardening on contact with moisture. The only place it should contact moisture is where the leak is, thus hardening there and no where else. Well, I don't buy it. If there's moisture anywhere else in the system it will react to it and harden. What if a chunk breaks off and gets moved through the system? Think of the repercussions!:mad: :confused: :eek:

[cheynae 99]

wat does a evaporator coil look like and where is it located

[halfhandy]

It is an A-coil and is located in the top of the furnace.