Next job

[Tom King]

Actually, this is from a few days ago, but I've kind of lost track of days, and forgot to post this.  I have recovered the refrigerant, and it seems to be uncontaminated being the right pressure in the new recovery tank for its temperature.  Cool mornings projected, which will be much better working in that attic.

 

The end heat pump in the rental house never has worked very good.  Crimped copper line picture is the vapor line.  I don't think that 3/4" vapor line is passing much of anything.  All the electrical, compressor, and fan works like it should.

Tomorrow morning, while it's still cool, I plan to recover the refrigerant.  Unit is 2006 so uses 410a.  I keep separate manifold gauge sets for different refrigerants.

It's too tight up there to want to do any brazing, so I'll be using a Parker Zoomlock Push coupling, and then pressure test with Nitrogen.   

 

I'll braze it if I have to.

The house was remodeled in 1974, and it looks like whoever put this system in used the old line set from back then.  It snakes all over the place, and goes down in the wall.  I'm going to try to straighten it out some, and cover it with new pipe insulation.

If the first fix doesn't hold, I'll probably just run a new line set through the gable wall.  The condenser unit sits right below that gable on a ground pad.  No one sees that end of the house, and I can cover it with a kit that makes a decent looking job anyway.

I did away with some of the superfluous, rough lumber roof truss bracing, and built a plywood floor to have a good base to work on, rather than balance on ceiling joists.

It's probably hard for you to tell anything from these pictures.

 

 

[Tom King]

I just noticed some uninsulated plumbing water lines in that second picture.  I'm at least glad they're in the attic, and not in the slab.  If I ever have to fix those, I'll probably reframe that whole end of the attic to make working space.

I hope there's not another crimp in either of those lines, but don't know yet.  I didn't want to crawl under the air handler if I don't have to.  There is a big access door where they raised it up in there in the other closet.  That white board is part of the framed opening for that access door.

[Dave H]

I hate crawling around in attics and, crawling around in crawl space's under the house's cleaning spider webs away with my head. I worked as a carpenter my entire adult life, when I started I was the guy that did all the dirty work, I always thought some day I won't have to do it anymore then I got older and I was still the guy, (try getting an apprentice to crawl around and get some production going) it was easier as I saw it to do it myself, I was going to have to go in and fix it anyway (most of the time damn kids don't care enough to do it right anyway. I'm retired now and if I have to have some crawling around to do.... you guessed it it'll be me. Good luck on your project!

[Tom King]

Around here, the only way I've ever been able to get anything done right is to do it myself.  This is a Trane heat pump, so it was installed by pros.  I'm not as impressed by that word as I used to be.  I've been putting this job off until close to last.  The only other thing I have to do is install some handrails on a set of steps.  This house came cheap because no one else wanted to bother with it.  

[drzaius]

It looks like there was an attempt to squeeze the crimp out of the pipe. Pretty nasty.

[legenddc]

How do you and Chestnut seem to have 48 hour days while the rest of us are stuck with 24?

I agree about the lack of professionals who are able to do things right. Anytime my wife has convinced me to hire someone for something I can do (or learn to do) I'm not happy with the results.

[Tom King]

I only have three hours to work each day, at best, and even then I might get called to the house to help Pam take my half paralyzed Mother to the bathroom a couple of times.  I park with my truck headed to the house.  Pam gets the second half day while I stay at the house, and call her if I need her. 

Not cool enough up there this morning for me to work, but supposed to be 61 and 62 the next couple of mornings.

Looking at line sets online.  I may decide to just replace both lines with pretty bends and new tubing, and cut that other stuff off where it comes out of the wall.

[Tom King]

$180 for a new line set.  

https://www.supplyhouse.com/ICOOL-F383438025-3-8-LL-x-3-4-SL-x-25-ft-Refrigerant-Line-Set

 The refrigerant is contaminated a little bit, so I'll recycle that, and put in some fresh when I get it reliable to hold pressure.  The old stuff may have some stop leak in it that effects the temperature a bit, or even have some old R22 left in it from the original unit.  Or it could have a bit of air in it from a leak, or poor handling in the past.

I'm going to pressure test it with Nitrogen like it is.  That way, I will know if one of the units is leaking.  If the evaporator coil is leaking, it's about as cheap to replace the whole air handler as it is to buy a new evaporator coil, unless the leak is obvious and can be fixed.

Probably this to cover it going down outside the brick on that end of the house.

https://www.supplyhouse.com/Fortress-84125-4-5-Ivory-Wall-Duct-Kit-LDK122I-12-Ft-Kit

[legenddc]

On 9/2/2022 at 11:50 AM, Tom King said:

I only have three hours to work each day, at best, and even then I might get called to the house to help Pam take my half paralyzed Mother to the bathroom a couple of times.  I park with my truck headed to the house.  Pam gets the second half day while I stay at the house, and call her if I need her. 

Well you sure seem to get at it and consistently! Hope your mom is still holding up well and enjoying the birds.

[Tom King]

I decided to not go to max test pressure with the Nitrogen to start with, and I didn't need to.  At 300 psi there is the smallest little leak at that crimp.  Pressure didn't noticeably drop for a couple of hours, so hopefully that's the only leak.  No bubbles on the coils which was a relief.

I cut the tubing near that crimp, and it's Nasty inside.  I expect the previous unit using these lines used R22, and that has different oils in it than 410a.  You're supposed to flush the lines if you reuse them, but I'm betting they didn't bother.  The old compressor could have failed and blown all sorts of gunk in the lines.

New lineset it is, and I'm hoping the system working parts are not trashed.  Everything runs, but I don't know how much of the R22 gunk is in anything.  Will study up on flushing the coils.  I'll put new lines on it, pressure test everything,  charge it, and see how it cools, or for how long it works.  If it doesn't cool well, I'll recover the refrigerant, and probably just replace both units.  I won't run it long enough to gunk up the new lines, I hope.

It's a shame more people don't understand how these things work, because you can get screwed and never know it.

edited to add:   Found this:   https://www.achrnews.com/articles/86197-internal-flushing-is-critical-for-coils

[Tom King]

The stuff in the old lines looks a Lot nastier than what's coming out of the lines in this video

 

[Tom King]

It was finally cool enough this morning to get back up into that attic, and my BIL is back wanting something to do.  

I had found a very small leak at that crimp before, but wanted to test the rest of the system before I wasted a $40 fitting.  I cut the tubing near that crimp on both sides, crushed it with pliers, folded the ends back over, and put a C-clamp on each end.

WIth that leak closed, we pressurized the lines with 350 psi of Nitrogen.  I was in the attic, and BIL outside manning the nitrogen tank.  We communicated with 2-way radios. He left the regulator set at 350, and he opened and closed the tank valve when I called for it.  There was still a leak.  Bubble testing the clamped ends showed that they were not leaking.

I bubble tested the evaporator coils in the air handler in the attic, and thankfully it was okay.  We closed the Nitrogen tank to not waste it, and took the top off the condenser unit outside to check those coils  Pressurized again, and thankfully again, no leaks on the condenser coils.

We could both hear something.  I put my ear against the big vapor line, and could hear hissing.  The conclusion was that it must be leaking inside the wall. 

New line set on order, and thankful it's a few hundred dollar job for lineset and fittings, and not several grand for a new unit.  It's a Trane 2006 system, so it should be good for some more years yet.

Even if I had to buy new units, I still would have wanted to replace the lineset, so this lineset should be good for whenever one of the units needs to be replaced.

 

[Tom King]

We set up scaffolding this morning, and I cut the hole through the brick, and wall for the new line set.  I didn't want to get thrown off the ladder running a big drill with a big bit, so the scaffolding gave much more working room. The Sun was brutal bouncing off of that wall by late morning, so that's as far as I got on it today.

The 3-1/4" core bit I'd bought for running electric service entrance wire cut the prettiest hole I've ever drilled through brick, and really wasn't much work.  The SDS-Max drill just walked right through it.  Cutting the wood behind the brick was really more of a job with a hole saw.  I didn't want to risk one of my big self feed bits hitting a nail, so I sharpened an old hole saw.

Picture coming.  This should have been the hard part.  BIL is leaving for a few days, and I don't know if I'll tackle the line set bending by myself, so it may go on hold for a week.

[Tom King]

Here's the picture my BIL took of me drilling the 3-1/4" hole through the brick.  Much easier standing on scaffolding than a ladder.  This was the largest hole I've ever drilled in brick, and also the easiest to do.

They're moving my Mom to rehab today, out of the hospital.  We have to go take care of that, so no work today.

While I have that scaffolding set up, I'm going to take down the old antenna mount, and paint the peeling fascia.

 

This is the bit.  It not only was the easiest, fastest cutting SDS-Max bit I've ever used, but left the prettiest hole.

[Tom King]

This morning, I built a support for the air handler so I could move it over some to allow more room for working on it.  It was hooked up with large flex duct that had a lot of slack in them, so it was pretty easy to move once I cut the refrigerant lines.  

I found another reason it "wasn't working so good".  One of the two 12" flex ducts on the supply side had come apart at a "coupling" where two pieces were just taped together.  A large part of any conditioned air, when or if it had ever worked before, was just blowing into the attic.  I picked up a 12" flex duct coupling on the way back from seeing my Mom this afternoon.

I also found the leak in the large vapor line.  It looks like the installer used the little end of a ball peen hammer to make a flange to solder the end of the other part into.  There is almost no seat.  It's hard for me to believe it had not been leaking all along.

While I was in the plumbing/HVAC supplier, they had a display of the ProFit fittings on the counter.  I asked him if anyone around here had used them.  He said he had them in stock, but had never sold one.  I guess I'll be the first guinea pig.  I have enough room up there to braze if I need to, but since I have these fittings, I'm going to give them a try.

 

[Tom King]

All I did today on it was use the coupling I bought yesterday to put that 12" flex duct back together.  It's amazing how much difference the air movement is in that end of the house now.  I guess that's why those pipes never froze, because they were heating the attic.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll get the lineset cover up on the side of the house, and may even run the lines.  Other stuff to do keeping this place up, so not sure how much of this work I'll get done.  I'm trying to complete at least one step at the time a day, even if it's a half hour job.

[Tom King]

Put the line cover up on the end of the house.  The tubing bender does a pretty job.  I'll have several feet of tubing left over from the 25' line set.

All buttoned up, just have to do the connections, but I'm done for the day.  We're going to visit my Mom in rehab about an hour away one way.  We've been every day since she's been there.  She's pretty beat up from her fall, but no major damage, and she's already gaining some strength back.

 

[Mark J]

Tell your Mom we're rooting for her.

[Tom King]

I did one of the outside connections in the 3/8 tubing with one of the Parker Push fittings this morning.  I polished the end of the tubing probably as good or better than the average worker does, so feel like it has a good chance.  I did leave enough extra tubing so I can braze it if I need to, but I'd make some bet on this fitting.  

The Sun caught me, so I moved over to work on the shop doors while they were in the shade, and will do another one tomorrow.

[Tom King]

Finished the outside connections this morning.  It's supposed to be 49 degrees tomorrow night, so it should be workable in the attic the next morning to do the other two connections with the new line set.  

I had to use the reverse bend function of that tubing bender, by bolting on another couple of arms.  I don't believe anyone can do a decent job of installing a line set without such a bender, and that was the main problem with that crimp to start with.

 

[Tom King]

I finally got back on this job, and connected the lines up in the attic.  I'm pressure testing the system by leaving 400 psi on it with Nitrogen overnight.  It doesn't look like it's leaking to start with.  I tested the fittings with bubble solution, and no bubbles.  If pressure is still good in the morning, I'll pull a vacuum on it, charge it with refrigerant, and try it out.  At least I hope I'm finished up in that tight attic.

[Tom King]

I pulled a vacuum on it for several hours to hopefully get all the moisture out of the system since there is no telling how long the old lines had been leaking.  Almost everything went like it was supposed to.  My cheap digital scale stopped calculating how much weight was lost in process from the refrigerant tank, but the weighing function still works, and I had remembered the starting weight.

I like a four valve manifold set, so you can hook up both a vacuum pump and refrigerant tank, and evacuate all the lines before closing the vacuum pump valve, and opening the tank.

Long story shortened some, it's working like a new one is supposed to now.  My collapsable white table saves a lot of bending over for a lot of different jobs.

 

[drzaius]

1 hour ago, Tom King said:

  My collapsable white table saves a lot of bending over for a lot of different jobs.

 

Those tables are an incredibly good value. Light , strong, cheap and easy to use. I've got at least 4 or 5 of them.

[Tom King]

That day in November was pretty cold, so  I installed that new charge into that system with the new lineset by weight.  It was working pretty good, but I caught one of the warmer days lately, so I could check it while running in cooling mode for subcooling with a temperature reader on the vapor line.  I did have to add a little more refrigerant to get the subcooling into the ideal range.   With the type of system this is, it's best charged by checking subcooling on the vapor line.  Ideal subcooling is listed on the outside of the outside unit.  In this case ten degrees.

It was 65 in the house when I started, so I set the thermostat to 63 in AC mode.  By the time I got the subcooling into the ideal range, it felt like it could make ice with the AC air coming out of the vents in the house, and fairly quickly brought the temp in the house down to the 63 that it was set on.

[Tom King]

I haven't had to do anything but change the filter for this heat pump since zeroing in the charge back then.  Everyone says now that it's the best working AC they've ever seen.  We've had a number of rental families in and out of there.

I think a lot of times HVAC techs don't have the best conditions and don't wait long enough to get the charge balanced just right, so there is guesswork and hope involved.  This was taking the time to get it just right after waiting for the best conditions for doing so.

When I started in on it, I didn't have real high hopes for even saving the system.  There is no telling how long it had not been working but was trying to.  Maybe there's something to the slogan "It's hard to stock a Trane".