groma
Jun 8, 2008, 10:19 AM
Hi there folks,
Just bought a house with a bad AC unit---I knew it was bad. It's a 2 1/2 ton Ruud. It's about 15 years old but it only ran 5 or 6 seasons briefly then it loss charge and they never fixed it. I'm a plumber #1 and a heat and ac guy #2---not certified. I thought I would fix unit and then have a certified friend do the vacuum/charge thing. First thing I did was start the unit. No problem--ran quiet and smooth---turned off after about 20 seconds. Next I turned off service valves and put 200 lbs. of nitro in lines. Went down to 150 lbs. after about 2 hours. I wanted to isolate lines from evaporater to check each separetely since I couldn't find the leak with my Big Blue bubbly stuff. Went into the attic AFTER releasing the nitro and cut high side first, about 2 feet from coil. After a few minutes of cleaning off the low line I began to cut it when suddenly there was a discharge for about 10seconds from the AlREADY cut high side line---from the evaporater side of the line. I thought that was strange. Somehow there was air still trapped in the evaporater coil even though the line was open. This must have something to do with the expansion valve---but I don't know what it means----or if it has something to do with the pressure loss I was seeing. If that TXV may be bad I will just get another evaporater. Burn in new filter driers and then let my gas guy do his thing. Does it sound like I'm going in the right direction?? Any other ideas??
Just bought a house with a bad AC unit---I knew it was bad. It's a 2 1/2 ton Ruud. It's about 15 years old but it only ran 5 or 6 seasons briefly then it loss charge and they never fixed it. I'm a plumber #1 and a heat and ac guy #2---not certified. I thought I would fix unit and then have a certified friend do the vacuum/charge thing. First thing I did was start the unit. No problem--ran quiet and smooth---turned off after about 20 seconds. Next I turned off service valves and put 200 lbs. of nitro in lines. Went down to 150 lbs. after about 2 hours. I wanted to isolate lines from evaporater to check each separetely since I couldn't find the leak with my Big Blue bubbly stuff. Went into the attic AFTER releasing the nitro and cut high side first, about 2 feet from coil. After a few minutes of cleaning off the low line I began to cut it when suddenly there was a discharge for about 10seconds from the AlREADY cut high side line---from the evaporater side of the line. I thought that was strange. Somehow there was air still trapped in the evaporater coil even though the line was open. This must have something to do with the expansion valve---but I don't know what it means----or if it has something to do with the pressure loss I was seeing. If that TXV may be bad I will just get another evaporater. Burn in new filter driers and then let my gas guy do his thing. Does it sound like I'm going in the right direction?? Any other ideas??