Air Conditioning - Warmish Air

Hello Fellas

Got a split system. Air handler in attic with AC/Heat Pump outside on slab.

Live in Arizona. Ran the heat pump once or twice over the winter.

Went to kick on the AC today and:

-Air Handler runs
-Fan outside runs
-I am pretty sure the compressor is running

The large copper pipe coming from the outside unit is modeately cool. The small copper pipe feels as if it is the same temp as the outside air.

My neighbor, the large pipe is very cool to the touch while the small pipe is very warm to the touch. We both have the exact same setups.

So anyway, at the vents, the air seems moderatly cooler then the still room air. The room air is fairly warm, so the vent temps are not exactly cool.

Any ideas?

Could it be low on charge? I am gonna get some gauges to put on it later in the afternoon.

Also, there are three points to hook up the gauges, and the activity from the gauges occured as follows when i pushed in the valve nipple.

-Large pipe, very little pressure comes out
-Small pipe, lots of pressure and a bit of liquid even
-Fitting in the middle of the other to pipes, low pressure and a bit of oil spit out of it.

I only pushed the valve in for a split second to see what would happen.

Please help, Thanks...

It sounds as if you could be low on charge but you need an epa certified person to check it out. We here can not give charging instructions. Sorry.

Have you made sure the indoor and outdoor coils are clean and a clean filter is in place?

Like said if your not EPA you cant mess with the freon part here. Good freon charge the big copper line should be cold and wet when it runs the AC.

ED ;)

A friend of mines Nephew is EPA certed, 609.

He came by with a set of gauges and gave me the low down on the readings.

Got in the ballpark of 12psi on the low side and 110psi on the high side, outside air temp at about 65*

Low for sure.

What opinions do you guys have???

The why didnt he gas it while he was there.

ED :wall:

It's low on charge allright.. Why didn't he recharge the system?

SHould look for the leak before he can recharge system.

If you dont mind me askin, given the pressures omnious told you, how do you know it is low in charge? Is there a formula that is used? If so what is it, it sounds interesting. Also, one last question, does any one know what happened to HVAC4U? He lives near by and I was going to hire him (send him a pvt msg) to do my annual check up on my A/C.

Thanx!

The why didnt he gas it while he was there.

ED :wall:


609 is EPA "auto tech" cert.

He is not certed to purchase R22. We are manuevering for a R22 30lber though through an industry associate of his.

SO it will be topped off in a matter of days. Gonna charge it full of dye also to check for leaks.

Anyone else feel it might be anything else other then just a low charge with a possible leak?

Anyone Anyone Anyone???????????????

Thanks yall.

If he is going to use dye, make sure it is one which is compatable with mineral oil.

Check the superheat, and sub cooling as well.

Its likely low on charge but could also be a restriction. I had a heat pump unit everyone added gas to and it had almost 3 times the required gas in it. The problem was the liquid line had a restriction. The seive fell apart and all the desicant balls traveled down the liquid line and jambed in a turn. If you add gas and the pressures climb, its likely a leaker.

We will have the 30lber on Monday.

We will add at a very slow and measured pace. In order not to overfill and to also diagnose other issues if present.

However I do have system flow. The first couple coils in the indoor coil do cool down and it does put out air a few degrees cooler then ambient.

how are you going to know what is the right charge is for the system? I hope you are not putting all 30# in the system??

Did you find the leak and made the repairs?

Just got a feeling
Is this a rheem or a ruud
From your description of the placement of the taps.
If this is the case then particular attention needs to be drawn to the indoor coil. That is probibliity where the leak is.

Well, the system has been charged and dye added.

Been running just fine now for a few days and only a fluctuation of couple PSI from when it was filled. The outdoor temps and indoor temps have also not been held constant when getting guage readings.

So it appears to be holding the charge. If the low side readings dip below 60PSI I will break out a light and start to check for the dye.

To get in the ball park I took some guage readings from a couple neighbors, everyone has the same setups as our community was built in 2001-2002.

The readings from the known good units on the low side hovered around 63-68PSI with the high side in the 210PSI ballpark.

Basically we added until we hit the ballpark, and that is where it is still reading today.

To get in the ball park I took some guage readings from a couple neighbors, everyone has the same setups as our community was built in 2001-2002.
I wonder what will happen when their units go out and they find out that you could have contaminated them with all this testing. :wall:

ED :rolleyes:

OK, so I got a question for the pros...

What will happen to my low side pressure reading as the temps inside the house drop?

I just took some temps readings as the inlet and at the room vents, didnt have any pro thermostat equipment though.

About 70* at the inlet, and about 50* at the vents.

The low side PSI was down about 3PSI from where it was a couple days ago. However my inside air temps were down about 10* since I had the guages on it a couple days ago.

Any of my ramblings here make sense???

I wonder what will happen when their units go out and they find out that you could have contaminated them with all this testing. :wall:

ED :rolleyes:


No worries, one neighbor has sold his place and is moving.

The other is a rented out, the owner is an absentee landloard, lives over seas. The tenant is real cool and we hang out. However he is getting tossed out at the end of this month as the landloard is taking profit as the Phoenix housing market has friggin gone nuts, wants to get out before the bubble bursts. So it will also be sold.

I didnt ask anyone else to help me out, as the last thing I want was to have fugged up their system with 100* temps less then a month away.

the 20 degree temp difference is a good gauge...This is perfect for a humid area I believe 17 for arid areas. The guide has been 17-21F. The low side will drop as the space temps hit 70 because the load is less. The high side should be about 30F higher than the outdoor temp with a CLEAN coil, 35F on a heat pump. These temps correspond to the pressures on the inner scales found on the gauges. These is typically 3 scales 12,22,502. normal pressures are 63inside and 225 outside for R-22, hotter days the high side will climb quite a bit....read the scale temp and add 30F. good luck

the 20 degree temp difference is a good gauge...This is perfect for a humid area I believe 17 for arid areas. The guide has been 17-21F. The low side will drop as the space temps hit 70 because the load is less. The high side should be about 30F higher than the outdoor temp with a CLEAN coil, 35F on a heat pump. These temps correspond to the pressures on the inner scales found on the gauges. These is typically 3 scales 12,22,502. normal pressures are 63inside and 225 outside for R-22, hotter days the high side will climb quite a bit....read the scale temp and add 30F. good luck


Thanks HVAC, that is exactly the info I was hoping someone would give me.......

There is a drawback... If you haven't been taught how to purge the gauges of air, you will likely introduce air into the system commonly refered to as Non-condensables :eek: This air will have moisture in it as all air does, this will create the necessary contaminants to create sludge & acid in the hermetically sealed system. This will adventualy cause a burn-out of the compressor. Keep in mind the electric motor windings are constantly bathed in oil and freon, as this becomes acidic it eats away at the windings that are shelaced or varnished...its not like wire thats insulated with a plastic sheathe, more like a coat of paint. As this wears through the wires short together and create heat and less resistance till it heats the oil to about 300F and the oil makes sludge. When this happens, a clean-out is necessary and expensive and better to replace everthing including the piping (unless you chemically clean the piping). This is why most tech's are reluctant to even attempt to tell you how it's done. If you get caught or ratted out lets say by your X wife/girlfriend, pissed off neighbor/friend...she/he stands to make $10,000 reward,... you pay$ 25,000 per incident. I have heard of people doing this as a way to make cash.

Ended up also changing out a leaky shrader valve on the suction side of the AC unit at my second/rental property. Charged her up and cleaned the coil inside also.

I bought a non toxic coil cleaner at Lowes, pretty sure the company was called frost king. Worked pretty damn good in my opinion, coil was in poor order.

Also upgraded to brass valve caps with o-rings on all my service ports. My system at my new place had the friggin plastic jobbers on it, and the system at my rental property had brass caps but they were 15 years or so old.

All in all its been a bunch of fun playing with these things.

Thanks for the help fellas......