So my ac unit probably needs freon. Has all the symptoms. No longer cooling the home. Ice on the inside unit. Increase on monthly power bill.
I rent. Is there any reason to not go by the correct coolant with cash and refill it myself? I'm not an idiot. I do all the electric repairs on my truck. I've put new coolant in our old van. I've done all the plumbing and electrical repairs on the inside of my home. I know how turn off breakers and check for power.
So far the videos look simple, a lot like doing it on a car.
I would just have the guy I rent from call someone but I've kind of got some big projects going on the inside that I don't want to talk to my landlord about and its balls hot to clean and put them up. I'm working on 2 arcade machines in the living room and Iv'e got 15 boxes in the hall from my ebay business. Its not really a big deal but you know, might not look good to a landlord. I would just clean it up, but you know, its 100 fricking degrees.
Obviously not going to tell my landlord or anyone else I did this. I'm thinking about doing it around 1 AM at night when its cool outside and no one to pester me.
This is your landlord's financial burden. Why not just ask him? Unless your landlord is a prick, he shouldn't have any issue with fixing it. It's easier to keep a tenant happy than find a new one.
t. Landlord
>This is your landlord's financial burden. Why not just ask him? Unless your landlord is a prick, he shouldn't have any issue with fixing it. It's easier to keep a tenant happy than find a new one.
>t. Landlord
my appartment is a giant mess and I haven't had time to clean it because of a death in the family and it being fricking 97 degrees on the inside everyday. The messes are complicated. 2 arcade machines into pieces and boxes of stuff im selling on ebay down the hallway.
I rent from a banker. I don't expect him to understand why a MK2 cab is in peices in the living room.
He'll probably just send an AC technician, who might not even have to go inside. Landlord's see cluttered apartments all the time anyway.
>He'll probably just send an AC technician, who might not even have to go inside. Landlord's see cluttered apartments all the time anyway.
I don't know man. They probably don't see a lot of arcade machines taken apart. It would probably look like complete chaos to an old white banker.
Even if he just sends a tech. I expect him to ask the tech how things look in here because its a small town.
Its so god damn hot though I might just risk it. Its hot enough I dont have a lot of give a damns.
you might legitimately be on the autism spectrum
>its a small town
You're clearly a business man. You're running a profit doing your own thing, consider it a tithe to simply do the fix yourself without calling the landlord. Then hold the fix in your back pocket for the moment when/if the landlord pulls something on you. If it's a small town, you have an opportunity to build a relationship or gain a mighty reference for when you're looking for another place.
Look at it this way: do you really need to save the money? What would the amount of money buy you of equivalent value? Now, consider the value of being able to counter-negotiate with the landlord. Oh, you're terrible at negotiations? Then consider this an opportunity to 'buy' a potential challenge to improve yourself. He'll, if you're super enterprising, you can start planning your next negotiation to request a caveat for your home business efforts.
wow you're dull
just tell the landlord you need freon and that you need an AC tech to handle it and let the AC tech handle it, the AC tech doesn't care, and the landlord won't care about a bunch of tech on the off chance he were to for some obscure reason come in unless you're an autistic weirdo which he fears might make a bomb, outside of that he won't care as long as you're not destroying his property.
Cool arcade game, Ahmed
>"I haven't had time to clean"
>spends like 4h a day posting on chinese fingerboarding website
liar
>my appartment is a giant mess
never forget that your landlord has seen worse
just make sure there's a clear path to the AC
You never clean it because you're mentally ill and hoarding trash comforts you.
don't be a tard, it's landlord's responsibility
if he's a prick you put rent into escrow until he fixes it
>Is there any reason to not go by the correct coolant with cash and refill it myself?
Yeah-- just the cost of refrigerant and tools that you might not use again.
Here's an excellent book about how to do this, so you can make your mind up for yourself: (https://litter.catbox.moe/ylvm68.epub)
If your system is an old r22 one, then it can be kind of a pain because the refrigerant is so expensive these days. Most residential units only have a few pounds in them, but the most economical way to purchase refrigerant is in 30lb cans.
they dont sell refrigerant in small cans for anything other than car AC. you would need to buy a 30b cylinder, charging hose and gauge set. unless you already own the gauges and have the refrigerant.. this will cost you a small fortune up front. and you will use maybe a pound of that refrigerant. not worth the cost to your average consumer. thats why AC tech companies can do this cause they buy that 30lb cylinder and can use it for multiple jobs which will easily offset the cost of it as well as the equipment.
stop being a dumbfrick and tell your landlord. 99% the landlord wont need to step foot in your apartment and the AC tech isng going to give a frick about what you have in your living room and hallway. they arent going to go running and snitching to your landlord.
you pay rent for a reason, let the frickin landlord fix the AC its his responsibility.
Freon in AC units doesn't just 'get low', it leaks. If your system is low it has a leak. If you just put more in it is just going to leak out over time and you will be right back here. Have someone check your system for leaks and fix them.
Everytime a technician hooks up gauges, refrigerant is loss. Do it enough times and now your system is low.
Just call the landlord. He'll send a tech who does need to come in. Slip the tech a $20 and tell him not to mention the mess to anyone, he'll keep it to himself guaranteed.
If it's icing it's not that low and there's no point leak checking an old R22 system. Throw some stop leak in and charge it up, if it doesn't last it's time for a new one. No one repairs coil leaks anymore.
Tell me you know nothing about HVAC without telling me you know nothing about HVAC. Defrost is only a thing in winter, not summer, and "setting the temp too low" isn't a real thing.
This guy gets it. It's either airflow (check your filter, make sure all the vents are open) or it's a low charge (or both).
This is called a "de minimum" release, someone would need to hooking up to it every day for months to lose enough to cause icing.
OP you can't buy the refrigerant without an EPA card and even if you found it it'll be expensive. Don't frick with it, make the landlord fix it.
You lose approximately 2oz of refrigerant everytime you hook up (unless you are dealing with packed valves). 8 times is 1lb of refrigerant. Average resi system holds about 3-5lbs. Its 100% possible. I've been in the field for 20 years. Its not out of the realm of possibility. Especially when you are dealing with criticality charged systems.
>You lose approximately 2oz of refrigerant everytime you hook up
Which again is a minimal release
>8 times is 1lb of refrigerant. Average resi system holds about 3-5lbs. Its 100% possible
Your system is getting hooked up maybe once a year, so in eight years you might lose a pound. Maybe. If your shit is getting hooked up more than that then you already have other issues.
>I've been in the field for 20 years. Its not out of the realm of possibility
I've been doing this 30 and I guarantee that you've never once in your 20 years ever worked on a unit that was only low because of eight years of hose connecting. You're moronic for even suggesting that.
>Especially when you are dealing with criticality charged systems.
Residential AC are not critical charge systems. Critical charge is seen almost exclusively in refrigeration, like ice machines where the charge has to be to the fraction of an ounce or it won't work properly.
So you're saying that freon lasts forever infinitely?
It's intended to be a hermetically sealed system, and Yes-- that's basically the idea.
(in the real physical world, there is no such thing as a sealed system, and molecules will always get out by various means, and there will also be elimination of refrigerant molecules due to chemical reactions etc, but if there is not a large "real" leak then a residential air conditioner shouldn't need refrigerant added for the life of the equipment)
You don't charge these things up like putting gasoline into a cars fuel tank or charging up the battery on your cell phone.
In theory yes but as the system ages corrosion causes small leaks to form that eventually worsen until the unit won't hold a charge at all. A leak check is useless, if you find it and patch it another will just pop up somewhere. If it's the indoor coil you can still replace it but if the outdoor coil leaks and it's r22 then you're probably boned since most are no longer available.
A leak of a pound or so a year isn't really serious, get it charged and drop some leak sealer in. Once it starts losing the whole charge it's time to replace it all.
We have an old GE chest freezer from the 1950s in our basement that is used for long term storage. Build like a tank and actually pretty efficient. It is a model before automatic defrosting so it doesn't use a whole lot of power. We have never had to top up the refrigerant in it. Almost 70 years of service without and issue. Sure, its a statistical outlier. Not contesting that. The family is on our 4th normal refrigerator but they can last. As
and
said, ideally it will hold its refrigerant charge forever.
I knew that fricking AC tech half-assed his job
>Has all the symptoms. No longer cooling the home. Ice on the inside unit.
those aren't the symptoms of needing freon. those are the symptoms of some idiot setting the temp too low, or the defrost board not working.
No offense, but you're kind of off the mark here.
While freezing the evap CAN be a symptom of inadequate airflow across the coil, if the filter is fresh and the coil looks clean, then most of the time it indicates an inadequate level of refrigerant.
"Setting the temp too low" isn't the cause if the house is warm.
And it's quite uncommon for a residential AC (not heatpump) to have a defrost board at all. And even with heat pumps, the defrost board is almost exclusively for the outside coil in order to provide defrost function as the unit cools the outdoor coil during winter low temp operation while heating the home.
well mist expert
OP never said his AC was a heat pump or not. since he's in "unit" that possibly indicates a split system/heat pump, or central air, either way it almost certain that OP (the expert in all things) has no idea what he is talking about and his issue is NOT low "freon".
>his issue is NOT low "freon".
If the indoor coil is freezing, the first thing to check is adequate airflow across the coil (IE clean filter and reasonably clean indoor coil) and the second thing to check is for undercharged condition.
I agree with you that despite OP's assertion to the contrary-- it is quite likely that he's an idiot.
>Ice on the inside unit.
Clean the fricking thing. And I don't mean just wipe it down, you need to clear out the shit that's stuck in the fins.
A couple of things:
This is your landlords problem, and if you do anything and frick it up (which is REALLY easy to do), you are going to be on the hook for a WHOLE lot more than a few hundred bucks to top off refrigerant and fix the leak.
If it is an older unit, buying your own R-22 is going to be north of $1500.
Also, units don't just "leak" refrigerant under normal conditions, you have a hole somewhere in your condenser coil or in the line set. Unless you can braze, you cannot fix this yourself.
ice on the evap is 2 things:
1. fan motor is bad or not running at full speed causing poor airflow, or coil is blocked with dirt causing poor airflow
2. you have a low refrigerant scenario happening. most likely due to some pinhole leak that you will never find without a proper leak detector tool.
its the landlords problem. repairs are part of your rent agreement unless you live in a slumhole or have a shady landlord thats not legit.
You can get freon off ebay, it's going to be expensive
I was following this and I thought I was doing well
Well youre gonna want to find where you leak is first
To do this is real simple.
You don't want a bunch of dye in your system either, only refrigerant, but that's nasty stuff.
Go get yourself a vaccume pump, those can be quiet expensive. An old fridge and a pair of bolt cutters will nab you one pretty quickly under the cover of darkness.
Next you gonna want to purge your system
A reclaim machines quiet expensive but $5 on ebay will get your fridge pump hooked up to your HVAC system in notime through it's shader valve.
Once you got the pumps intake hooked up to your system, just turn it on and walk away, you don't want to breathe this shit trust me.
Idfk how long it'll take, just check back until it stops spewing shit.
Nitrogen is quiet expensive, but youre welding tanks are inert for the most part. Just hook them up like the fridge pump and pressurize your system with co2. Walk around all the tubing and shit with a lit cigarette until you find the spot blowing the smoke like an open window.
Now a hvacuck will charge you a few thousand dollars to braze this, but Cletus from the garage will come over and do it for a carton of cigs.
Afterwards youre gonna have Cletus hook up his ac gauges inline with your fridge pump and your gonna draw a proper vacuum, if Cletus doesn't have gauges just send him on his way and let your fridge pump chug away for about a week just to be safe.
Then you just hook up your grey market fridgerant and filler up!
>I rent. Is there any reason to not go by the correct coolant with cash and refill it myself
Dumbass
You have a bad TXV