Hello, Had a couple of questions that I figured that I run past the experts.

Anyway, my friends uncle is a lead maintenance guy for an apartment complex across the river from me, and wants to hire me on this summer to help him upgrade and repair the A/C units in the complex where he is in.

The old management staff pretty much let the place is dis-repair, and the new ones are trying to fix it.

Here is the deal, all the units are equipped with either 1.5 or 2 ton Packaged HVAC systems (looks like a Magic-Pak) and are made by Patco. The complex was build in 1980-81 and has about 425 units in it.

So far here is the deal, the A/C chassis are removable, and they are getting re-done as needed this year.

They actually paid for a load calculation (FREAKIN' AMAZING), and it turns out that some are undersided or oversized, and we are correcting this problem.

What we have are New compressors, coils, and Motors.

Now, all the units will be from 1.5 to 2.5 tons.

Here is my delima where I'm wondering to punt or not.

First off, they are all cap tubes, and they were thinking of installing TXV's in them to increase efficiency. I think this is a Horrible idea as the cap tubes have worked for the past 25+ years, and the current staff does not have a clue what to look for, nor will learn or pay to learn on the maintenace of these things.

Second, there are no High Side service ports installed. And the low side was only added on maintenance or repair when a system was re-built. They were shipped sealed.

Thrid, the "Charging Methods" used are not exactly the standard in the HVAC industry. Superheat and Subcooling are not in the Vocab of most od these folks. Charge to 60-70 PSI and stick a thermomoter in the discharge area and get it to 54-58* and it will work.

Now I used to do this work part time, and still do Vehicle A/C part time. I'm 608 and 609 certified, and the shop is surprising equipped with proper charging and recovey equipment.

The biggest question is, is it worh it? Now there is some prerry good $$$ involved here, but the level of headaches, espically with those TXV's could spell disaster.

Now I am sure that it will work, I would feel a lot better if the TXV's were nixed. The big question is, would you put yourself in this situation if given the opportunity, the only reason that I am even considering it is the $$$, that is it.

Oh the fun this could be.