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Mufflers quiet noise by smoothing out vibrations and pulsations in the refrigerant circuit.

Originally Posted by kamersoutdoor

Attachment 343171

Is this a muffler?

Yes it is.

I can see where replacing a muffler with a drier would kill a compressor. The drier would be restrictive, where the muffler would not.
Plus, it would be in the discharge line immediately following the compressor vs. in the liquid line after the condenser coil.

Attachment 343171

Is this a muffler?
Found this on an Armstrong HP. Also found two driers in series on the liquid line, the most recent being a mono flow (clogged txv, go figure)

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i have found were the muffler was removed and a liquid line drier was installed and the replacement compressor was dead , not sure if it killed it or what.as for the spun copper driers they are one way driers and any time i remove the refrigerant i replace them with a regular drier or a biflow drier .i find that alot of companys never replace them they just add a biflow in the liquid line and leave the contaminated driers in the unit

A few years ago I had a call in a condo tower for a loud noise, it would go up and down the whole time running in heat. In cool, it was quiet. Go up to the roof and that was the first thing i checked, someone had removed the mufflers/recievers because here at the beach they rust away quickly. It was a Trane.

I've seen mufflers on a number of units. replaced leaking one on a westinghouse last week.

The factory f/ds are smaller since the assumption is there was less contamination in the system, as opposed to a field repair.
Trane used to use two mono-flow dryers, and if they were switched out, I just used a biflow in the common liquid line from service valve.

They are not inferior they are rated for size of system, but only under factory conditions.

Some larger carriers have a muffler. Only one I have had to replace was leaking refrigerant.

I have never had a problem with a Trane muffler, but I have had one of the 'small copper filter-driers' that you are
referring to 'plug-up' 2 months after the unit was installed last year. I bypassed it with some 3/8" copper and it ran fine afterward.
There is obviously not much surface area in them, so they can potentially be a problem.
I already had a sporlan drier installed after the service valve.

I have noticed the past few months on the Trane 2012 models that they are using larger driers again instead of the 'small copper' ones.
Hopefully they will continue to do so.


I was at a Trane class last year and they said the mufflers are supposed to help with the acoustics.
They told us they would never clog, so never remove them when troubleshooting.

Trane Mufflers.

I encountered my first Trane muffler.
I almost figured it was just a filter-drier
and was going to cut it out, but at the last
minute called the senior tech and he vaguely
clued me in--"leave it."

Since almost (?) nobody else uses them,
do they really do anything? Has anybody
been to Trane training and received more
info on them? Just curious. I did read the
one thread on here that says they NEVER clog
or anything, to not touch them. Like I said,
I'm just curious.

On that same note of curiousness, the same
unit had one of those tiny copper filter-driers.
(I removed it and brazed in a big-blue bi-directional
on the liquid line.) It was outside of the coil but inside
a side panel on the outside unit. (I say "outside"
because it was a heat pump.) Are these things
inferior to the more common big blue filter-driers?
Does anybody make a point of replacing them with
the same copper type or is a big blue filter-drier
just fine?

Thank you.