Mini Split, no purge, no vacuum

[Arnold64]

Ok so long story short, my dad (old guy) installed a cheap mini split system a couple days ago and basically just hooked everything up, opened the valves and away he goes. He says it's working good but I know he was supposed to get it vacuumed and tested before start up. I will pay a guy to go to his place (out in the boonies) but my question is has any potential damage already been done? What if anything should be done at this point? Being that it was a cheap system is it even worth it now? Please don't berate my dad in your replies, he means well, I'm just trying to help him out. Thank you.

[TwincamDave]

Long term you could have some compressor issues due to moisture in the system(in the open lines set), that when mixed with refrigeration oil turns into acid.Might cost more to recover and clean up the system ,if you got it cheap, thenjust letting it go and deal with it later. It is a crap shoot.

[t527ed]

it would need refrigerant recovered, system properly evacuated then recharged with new refrigerant.
depending on how cheap it was it would probably be worth it because moisture in the system will cause issues down the road.

[t527ed]

Long term you could have some compressor issues due to moisture in the system(in the open lines set), that when mixed with refrigeration oil turns into acid.Might cost more to recover and clean up the system ,if you got it cheap, thenjust letting it go and deal with it later. It is a crap shoot.

great minds think alike.......... i guess some just type faster.

[beshvac]

I would also pressure test the lineset....those mechanical connections usually were never tightened enough....

[toocoolforschool]

Cheap is a belief that something will save you money but in reality cheap means not getting what you paid for in the first place so it will cost you the money that you originally saved and then some.
Water under the bridge, you are doing the right thing now that's what is important.

[heaterman]

There are some pretty cheap mini splits out there. If it is the cheapest of the cheap, it would cost as much as the unit to have me recover, add a drier, evacuate and charge the unit as it would to buy another. Bear in mind that having someone evacuate a new system and start it would also cost so I guess you have to do the math and make a decision based on that. As to the question of damage already done, depends on how much moisture and atmosphere is actually trapped in the system. R410 is not as forgiving as R22 but it's anyone guess at this point.

[Arnold64]

Ok, thanks for all the feed back. I think i'm just gonna forget about it and let nature take it's course. Hopefully he gets a few good years out of it.

[carmon]

probably will......