Here we had a service call on a remote system with a major refrigerant leak. It started with just the coils but quickly escalated into a line-set replacement. They dont always go as planned.
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Today, we've got a waitress reach and slash bar unit. That's not working. This is obviously a remote system. The evaporator is downstairs.
The complaint is that the boxes are hot. So right when I got here, the first thing I noticed was the unit was shutting off. So I thought maybe it was satisfying, but actually no, it's short cycling. So if you watch it it's turning on and off on and off, so it's actually shutting off on low pressure more than likely - and I noticed that when it turns on the sight, glass barely shows signs of anything.
So it does look like we're low on refrigerant. We've got an outdoor ambient of 70 degrees right now, it's still early. So what I'm going to do is go ahead and add some refrigerant. This particular unit takes our four 27a, so we're gon na go ahead and add some refrigerant get this guy going.
What I'll? Actually do is come over here, shut the unit off and we're gon na go ahead and blast it into the high side. Let it take a bunch as much as they can and then once it won't take anymore on the high side, then we'll meet her. The rest into the low side when the compressor is running, I went ahead and closed off my low side or my high side. I bled in quite a bit and we're gon na go ahead and start it out now and see we're at it's good, though, took some gas Cyclops about half-full.
So now I can go ahead and finish charging on the low side. I'm just gon na meet her at end nice and slow, I'm kind of metering it in as I'm looking at my psych class, currently washing the spill. So I'm gon na keep metering the refrigerant in until my sight, glass clears up and then we'll check the rest of the vital signs and try to find a leak. Does so we're charged up now.
Clear-Site glass we're a little high on our head pressure, but I'm gon na. Let it run for a few minutes and let the boxes calm down because they were pretty high in temp when I got here, but we're looking pretty good. So now it's time to find a leak. This is their bar region.
I'm gon na pull this thing apart, then the return bends. This is the waitress region, picking up leaks everywhere, all around the TXV. We put them up over in this area. Definitely picking up one right in this area and then over in this area.
She's done so I received authorization to replace the evaporator coils. This one right now is the bar region, and then I'm gon na go ahead and pan on over to the waitress region. I like to prep these things outside of the boxes, so that way, once I get them you just install them and then you're pretty much done. I go as far as even installing the temp controls and everything okay, so we finished welding and we're doing a nitrogen pressure test.
So I'm opening up on the high in the low side, I'm gon na wait for the pressures to settle out and then make sure that they hold I'm doing this, because this thing is leaking all the refrigerant out within the week or it was so. I know we had major leaks of both of those coils, but I want to make sure that's the only week, instead of just wasting 45 minutes on a vacuum, so my fear was realized. A pressure tested the system, there's no leaks and my coils that I just put in but there's a leak, a major leak somewhere else in the system, pretty sure it's in the line set, so we've got multiple line, sets splitting off and then going downstairs. It's kind of a mess, so I'm cutting each lines and we're going to pressure test each one individually and find out which ones going where. Because we changed two coils one in their waitress and one in their bar. And then we're also going to find out which one has the league? Hopefully it's just one of them, so we pressurized the lines on one of them and it's holding all right. So we've got it hooked up to the other lines. Now look at the leaks on the low side.
You can actually hear it. If you stick your hear to that chase right there, you can hear it bubbling and water. So my theory is that this line set goes down and goes underground and it's filled up with water, and it's just sitting there and I mean look at how they ran all these con diseases, other ones that aren't being used together. That's probably rubbed against another one of those lines too, but yeah.
This thing's got a disasterous leak in it and we just made it bigger by moving the lines around, because it wasn't going this fast until I started playing with those lines and it started just dropping real fast. So this is the chase that I'm talking about. It's going underground, but look at this. It's like a metallic conduit and if you look down, there's also a PVC chase, so I could only imagine those copper lines are rubbing inside that metallic conduit and I don't even know why it's movable you see the shape of that copper.
Okay, so go ahead and penetrate through the ceiling run the line set down into the booth under the booth down into there. Okay, so we just got the ended up and running it's currently pulling down to temp, so the pressures are still a little crazy. It's about 75 80 degrees outside so yeah we're looking pretty good on our pressures running about a 17 degree, vibrator temp, that's pretty decent! So but again, it's still high in temp. So what we ended up doing was cutting off the left side line set completely out of the picture we ended up.
I came back over here. I redid the line set all the way back up to the compressor because it was kind of a mess. I just didn't like that, so I just cleaned it up a little bit okay, so we teed off to the one line set going down the chase which is going to their bar and then we just ran another line set over it ain't straight, but it is What it is, there's a lot of things about this job that I don't like, but this customer does not want to spend money. He does not want us to waste time.
He just wants it done, so I still got to seal that penetration, but other than that. We're looking good everything's cool, you know. Sometimes you got to do these jobs, especially if you're working for restaurants, when it's like a small mom-and-pop, they don't have money to spend to do it all fancy and pretty. I would love to put dira blocks down. Unis strut clamps make this pipe. You know 100 percent straight, but they just don't want it again. You know. Sometimes we get to do those.
Sometimes you don't.
That is a tough job, chasing down that leak.
Probably your smallest video
yeah that kind of mess repiping of an old pipe lines.but you did great sir and replaced the whole evaporator is a good action.
What’s rubbing with that line set ??? They have earthquakes there ??? Wonder if that zillion dollar guage set there told him that an outdoor condensing unit needs a crankcase heater and a fan control for the cold weather months? Are you in Kanata ?
I honestly have no idea how you break even on jobs like this! The amount of labor alone must be staggering!
This is amazing….
Those damn condiments absolutely destroyed that evaporator…surprisingly I have 4 large ones and they have 0 damage after 35 years
God I love old style equipment
Not necessarily they don't want to replace the unit, they probably can't afford it. Big difference. Are you in Nepean ?
Thank you for the details.
i bet his car always has cold ac Service area Kanata??
You always have them “fix it and leave it” kind of people, Chris; you just do what you know they need and they will call you back later. Service area Ottawa??
wow….crazy.
Lots of clients will pay for the coils to be replaced but when you come back to them and say the line set is also bad and it's 2k to rerun a new one most clients are going to start the finger pointing and you should haves and guess who's not going to get paid. Has anybody else deal with these kinds of problems?
Did u switch refrigerant from 427A to 404? P.S. thanks for taking the time to make videos they're so helpful
good job
Thanks for the video. I enjoyed watching them. I used to do refrigeration for restaurants. I don’t see how you make money from those mom and pop restaurants. Sometimes I’d spend eight hours at a restaurant and only make $400 out the door.
I cannot think of anything crazier than copper within steel/ferrous and wet with trace salts around. The definition of a battery with massive corrosion – it isn't just the rubbing but metal ions being transported and leaks. Why in plumbing dielectric unions required. I would think glued pvc would be the only chase allowed underground. What a nightmare that you worked around.
Holy cow, I bet that one sucked…
Nice job chasing everything that leaked and not leaving any future problems! 😎
Great solution for customer. Good job.
Curious why no pee traps on long line set to reduce oil loss? We typical reverse a trap at roof penetration and place one every 50’ on long runs. What’s your thoughts?
What a nightmare call…. Are you in Ottawa ?
What do you think about field piece? I was told that they are bad hvac gauges.
I'd much rather use a halide torch and bubbles-my electronic too sensitive-goes off high humidity
Dam you did a great job man at the beginning of the video I would have walked away from that job and if he didn't want to spend any more money,by by
Sure, let me stick my ear through my monitor. Hah, in all seriousness, are installs this damn dodgy very common? It’s basically criminal as to how bad some of them are, it seems. I particularly love the one with the fan controller literally chopped out.
Hope you had an awesome Christmas (or whatever you celebrate) and a happy new year.
You never charged up the receiver…no wonder it loses refrigerant so fast it’s never been fully charged!!!
love these vids interesting
God I need a backpack like that.
Where'd ya get it? Are you in Orleans ?
When i replace evaps, or TXVs nowadays i prefer to place the TXV outside of the evap housing. Makes it so much easier to adjust them.
What a filthy fucken restaurant
Is it my imagination or can we actually hear it leaking?
wow lol Unimaginable the disgusting shit you must have seen over the years in restaurants
You must be a good estimater to make any money on these restaurant jobs
It is all in keeping the customer happy.
What kind of leak decter is that
You say the owner doesn’t want to spend money but they replaced two coils and an entire line set? With the leak check and everything that’s a lot of labor! That had to be a speedy bill I assume…
Did you have to do an oil change when you went from R427A to R404A
Nice job with what you were given.
Good vid. !
Wow, Yea , i recently got a new client , where i might see this exact kind of job in my future unfortunately.
Looks like a nightmare! Some hacks really did a number on this install. Pretty sure that repair bill in the end wasn't cheap even through you tried try to keep the customers cost down.
Good video.
You made an intimidating job look fairly easy. What a hot mess! Thanks for posting it. Service area Barrhaven??
I would nt prefer doing half ass jobs either…this one mustve hurt a bit for you…good video!
427a in the beginning then 404a at the end? Did you change when you replaced the evaporators?