Gas and Oil Home Heating Furnaces - I think we need a new AC unit :-(

we have a central heating unit; it's running but not cooling. we changed the filter, we also vacuumed the evaporator coils but nothing works.

we just had a technician come over on overtime ($75) and he checked a few stuff and said we needed a new sytem. he opened the compressor, felt it, measured some stuff using a guage, and determined the heat pump is dead. in the description box of the reciept, it reads, "no AC; found bad compressor, piston is broken in stpe(? - can't really read his hand writing), motor runs but it does not pump freon, system is 11 years old (the system is a Trane XE 800 - http://www.trane.com), to old to put compressor only, system needs to be replaced (!!!!)"

he couldn't check the freon level since the heat pump is dead.

*what he said:* the company, hill-air (www.hill-air.com) does not replace any compressor older than 7 years b/c if it or any other parts of the old system breaks down, the customers would get pissed at them - so they only replace compressors 7 years or younger. he also said that replacing the heat pump would cost about $1200 and that we're better off replacing a whole new central heating system since ours is too old at 11 years and that the average life span of a heat pump is 8-10 years.

I would like to verify a few things before we spend thousands getting a new sytem, so please answer the following questions:

- can you confirm what he said; i.e. is a heat pump's life span really 8-10 years; is my system really 11 years old (I tried to search the trane site, but no mention of the XE800)
- how can I check that my heat pump/compressor really is dead****VERY IMPORTANT
- the technician said that replacing the compressor/heat pump is $1200 and a new system would cost $4000; and that since our system is so old, we're better off getting a new one. so do we really need a new system (I knnow this is hard to answer, but basing on the age of the system and the price of a new system and the price of a new compressor, are we better off getting a new system?)
- anything else I should know?

"IF" and only "if" what he says is true, you may be better off replacing system, weigh the Pro's and con's, being a homeowner myself I know that some decisions are tough, do you plan to stay in the house for the next 10 plus years? at the same token a system that old, and being a Heat pump, if the compressor is replaced, probably get a 1 year warranty, then there are so many other things that can break down, reversing valves, indoor and outdoor TXV, leaky indoor/outdoor check valves, defrost boards, if you have a gas furnace,the outdoor stat. sooo many things, If you have gas for supplement heat (hopefully) then just gey a straight Air conditioner instead of Heat pump, they are less expensive to own and repair with alot fewer things to have problems, with a new system you get 5 year parts warranty, 1 year labor, alot of my companie's customes will get service contracts for less than 200 a year we go out twice a year to do preventative maintenance, customer is never charged service calls (unlimited) free 24hr emergency service (no paying double time) and you only pay for parts, plus you get 10% off those parts, alot of people get more than their money's worth on this, for others it's just like budgeting maintenance like you would for your car. In conclusion, get a second Opinion, ask friends who they recommend, tell the company to send there best Heat pump man, if you like the company, ask them for a service contract, they may take the service call price and put it towards the contract price, not in addition to, then go from there. let me know, I have a little experience with Trane Heat pumps and all the one's I have seen (old) had bad compressors, just a coincidence probably, We deal in mostley Lennox (best) Armstrong (second best) and Rheem (no opinion on Rheem). Thats my two cents, You may want a second opinion on everything I just said too, I learned that you should make desicions based on taking time and finding out as much as you possibly can, about anything.
Good Luck

thanks HVAC Man for the reply. but before I actually start shopping for a new heat pump or a whole new system, I would like to verify that the compressor is indeed broken, how would I do this without spending more money for another technician to come out?

secondly, just making sure, the heat pump is the exact same thing as the compressor?

the heat pump is a heat pump because it has a part on it called a Reversing valve,(amongst other things) this valve shifts direction of refrigerant flow, in heating mode your evaporator is the outdoor unit, (which uses less refrigerant than cooling mode,and unused refrigerant is stored in the accumulator)and your indoor unit is the condenser,when it switches into cooling mode, the reversing valve shifts, and now refrigerant flow is reversed and the indoor unit is the Evaporator, and the outdoor unit is the condenser, the only way I know of to verify Broken, stuck, or leaking valves is a thorough run of the heating, and cooling modes, while checking pressures, temperatures, amp draw on compressor, and a pumpdown test, being a homeowner and not legally allowed to work on the system due to the E.P.A. laws there really is nothing you could do, if you could, you would have to purchase some tools, and do some learning about heat pumps, I still don't know everything there is to know about them.
But here are some questions for you to answer for me
does the heat side of heat pump work?
is outdoor compressor noisey?
in cooloing, running for 15+minutes, at outdoor unit is the large copper pipe cold? and skinnier pipe warm to hot?
is the air the fan is blowing out hot?

"does the heat side of heat pump work?"
no idea..how would I find this out?

"is outdoor compressor noisey?"
I don't notice the outside unit being noisier..but it could or could not be.

"in cooling, running for 15+minutes, at outdoor unit is the large copper pipe cold? and skinnier pipe warm to hot?"
nope..both copper wires are about the same temperature - neither hot nor cold.

"is the air the fan is blowing out hot?"
nope..the fan is spinning but the air isn't hot..it's about the same temperature as inside my house.

Originally posted by Nero874
"does the heat side of heat pump work?"
no idea..how would I find this out?

"is outdoor compressor noisey?"
I don't notice the outside unit being noisier..but it could or could not be.

"in cooling, running for 15+minutes, at outdoor unit is the large copper pipe cold? and skinnier pipe warm to hot?"
nope..both copper wires are about the same temperature - neither hot nor cold.

"is the air the fan is blowing out hot?"
nope..the fan is spinning but the air isn't hot..it's about the same temperature as inside my house.
1. set t-stat for 1st stage heat, see if outdoor unit is running, see if there is heat coming out of the register
2. ok to noise, some units that have bad valves are noisey, but may not be noisey if they are leaking valves.
3. if both lines are samr temperature and the service technician did check the refrigerant charge, the compressor is not pumping, the compressor operates on the same concept as an air compressor, or car engine, there are pistons, and valves, refrigerant is sucked in, then valves close, refrigerant is compressed, then pumped out to the evaporator

"does the heat side of heat pump work?"

got it, it is working.

update:

my uncle just told a friend of his about our AC problem. the friend called a few mins ago and warned me against be scammed. he told me to check the compressor to see if it's running. so I turned on the AC and listened for the hum. it is indeed running and he said I probably only need some refridgerant and he'll charge $100 to do that.

so:
1) the original service technician said
"no AC; found bad compressor, piston is broken in stpe(? - can't really read his hand writing), motor runs but it does not pump freon, system is 11 years old (the system is a Trane XE 800), too old to put compressor only, system needs to be replaced"

so me hearing the compressor run: does that contradict what the technician said?

2) is $100 for freon a lot? I don't know how large our system is but I think it's about midsize for a house.

I was reading the thread 6-19-01.

The 'compressor will run and not pump' is a legitimate failure mode. The gauges would show about 150 to 200 psig on both sides of the system in a total non-pumping failure.

In the 'no gas' failure mode the gauges would show a much lower pressure (perhaps 0 to 30 psig). When running the low side pressure would drop into a vacuum and the high side would rise to maybe 50 to 100 psig (indicating that the compressor is pumping what little gas is left in the system.

I am willing to bet that the compressor was not pumping.

*****************
When you said, 'you got it working', did you mean that it ran OK in heat. I took it to mean that you found evidence that the compressor was running. If it did run OK in heat the diagnosis would be totally different.

"When you said, 'you got it working', did you mean that it ran OK in heat."

yeah, it only runs ok in heating mode..but it wouldn't cool.


here's an update:

my uncle told his friend who is an hvac guy (he's mentioned in #1 below), about our AC problem. he came today to verify that the compressor was broken (which it is). then a few hours later, a guy (#2 below) from the same company of our original technician (the guy who first diagnosed our problem) gave us an estimate of what a new unit would cost. here are what the two guys are offering:

1) my uncle's friend offered to sell and install a new outside unit for $1500. he'll get us a 2.5 ton Goodman unit. He also said that Carrier, the brand that the company of the estimator carries, sucks and that we should go with Goodman. I asked if we should replace our General Electric inside unit and he said we don't have to. he offers a 5 year parts and labor warranty. $1500 total for installation of outside unit only.

2) the guy who gave us the estimate gave us several options. the cheapest is $3,318. quoted from the estimate paper: "it includes installation of Carrier model #38YCC030 outdoor unit and a Carrier model #FA4ANF030 indoor air handler of the capacity of 28,200 BTU/hour, SEER rating of 10, and a HSPF rating of 7.2. the outdoor unit comes coplete with copper tube/aluminum fin coil, brass service valves, and high efficient compressor. the indoor air handler will be equibbed with 15KW electric strip heater to provide proper heating and cooling operation." this guy also offers a 5 year parts and labor. $3,318 total for installation of new system including outside unit, inside unit, and thermostat.

the more expensive option includes the Carrier "puron" heat pump model #38YZA030 unit with Carrier's Silencer System coupled with Carrier model #FV4ANF03 variable speed indoor air handler having the capacity of 28,400 BTU/hour, SEER rating of 13.5, and HSPF rating of 8.2 and uses the new Puron refidgerant. comes with 10 year limitied warranty parts and labor. total for the system is $5410 - rather expensive for us.

so which option should is the best buy? we're also planning on buying two used cars (one for me for college and one for my dad since his truck is crappy) so buying the $5400 system would put a huge dent in our budget. so the only two real viable options are the $1500 Goodman outside unit from my uncle's friend or the $3,318 Carrier system (outside and inside unit) from another company. Overall, which would be better for us? and thanks for your guys' help so far, especially HVAC Man.

I looked up the 1990 Trane product and found XE 1000 (10 SEER) and XE 900 (9 SEER) but not XE 800. The XE 800 is probably an 8 SEER made the prior year.

Matching a 10 SEER or higher new heat pump outdoor unit to the old air handler is a BAD idea. At the least, the efficiency of the new umit will suffer. At worst, the unit may not heat due to the inadquate design of the old indoor coil to meet the needs of the new outdoor unit.

Since guy #2 (from the company provided competant service and diagnosis) gave you the the most competant recomendations and since $3318 bottom line price on a complete system (including 5 years P&L warrany) is a good price, go with him.

*************************************
I suspect that the heat worked because the backup heat was working (and not the compressor).

Thanks for the response.

I found the model number of the indoor unit:

it's a General Electric BWE930G100DO (the O are the letter O)

the estimator said it's about 20 years old. and the outdoor unit is the Trane XE 800.

I hope that'll help you find the SEER rating. thanks, lynn cornstock.

The XE 800 Trane series is 9+ SEER depending on the air handler match up.

The best option is a completely new system: OD and ID portions.

As another homeowner who is going thru same process right now, let me add a few layman comments if its not to late to help you in your decision

First I'm impressed w/ the degree of help/advice you are getting from Lynn and HVAC man(would love you two to comment on my posting a few days ago called Heat Pump comparisons)...great to know there are folks out there like these two who like to help.

Only info I have that may differ is their recommendation to buy a whole new system--while a new matching complete system is optimally best long term solution, replacing the outside A/C unit may be a more cost effective(not absolute best option)option to consider since you indicate other financial needs--and especially if you are thinking of selling within say 3-5 years. Several very reputable service companies in my area have suggested to me that my inside air handler will probably go 20 yrs even w/ a new outside unit and since I plan to sell within 2 years its not advisable to spend double to replace inside unit(marginal sacrifice in efficiency is not worth extra $1500-2000). Their reputations are such that I don't think they would risk their business reputation if this was really a bad idea(from a best efficiency standpoint they still recommend a whole new system)If you find within a few months that you're not getting good heating/cooling than have them come out and replace the inside unit.

1)Check May 2001 Consumer Reports Article that provided reliability ratings(now this was for central A/C units and not Heat Pumps but it may provide some indication about reliability of their heat pump products as well; Top rated manufacturers are 1)American Standard(which owns Trane or vice versa); 2)Ruud 3)Trane 4)Tempstar Bottom four are(starting w/ worst) 1)Janitrol 2)York 3)Goodman 4)Carrier
-- I've spoke to a dealer on Goodman and I'm leary that its more of a low-end unit
-- Not sure the higher SEER units above 10 or 12 are really worth the extra investment. Your offer of $3300 for SEER 10 system seems like a pretty reasonable price. As comparison my best estimates for a more costly 3.5 ton SEER 10 (outside unit only) are about 1770-1900 (other estimates were much higher--Goodman was cheapest around 1500 but I wont go w/ it)
2)Get at least 3 estimates from service providers w/ good reputations(ie check local BBB and county consumer agency for complaints, state agency that licenses these contractors--often very revealing where BBB not so, neighbors/friends, etc)Just so happens that my local Wash DC area has a great local magazine called "Washington Checkbook"(related to Consumers Report) that rates local contractors...maybe your city has something similar.
-- if replacing only outside unit make sure they include in labor cost to properly "evacuate" lines of any impurities leftover from a burnt out system. Some will also install a "line dryer/evacuator" permanently or for 6 mos to ensure elimination of impurities.

Hope this helps...again I'm no expert...just a laymen homeowner
Steve

Thanks Steve,
I love compliments, considering I've only been in this buisness since March 2000 when I graduated top in the class For Hvac/R. :)
thanks Again

thanks HVAC Man, lynn cornstock, and absalons for your very helpful input. my parents already decided yesterday and we're going to go with my uncle's friend. he's coming over today to replace the outdoor heat pump with a goodman unit. it's discouraging to see goodman is one of the worst but the guy is coming over this afternoon (my parents called the guy to come over before I read absalons' reply).

I'll keep you guys updated. thanks again.

the new goodman outdoor unit has been installed for a few days already. it seems to be running fine, the house is cool, and everything is just dandy.

the unit is a goodman model # CPKE30-1 (that's a zero) and it's a 10 SEER unit.

The greatest concern with not changing the indoor coil is the heating function. The jury is out until winter comes.