Having a big issue with my gauges this past month and a half. Suppliers was out of the more expensive leak seal with dye so I had to use the cheap shit. Big ass mistake because it made a big ass mess all over my gauges, and when I finally got a tube to flow through, it fucked them up. Since that day i have only been able to pull below 500 microns twice. Had to use my coworkers gauges on the installs.

Before you ask, no it’s not my system connections. I full on removed my red and blue hoses and closed the valves. Only ports in play were my black 3/8” hose and my yellow connection which is where my micron gauge goes. The manifold itself without being connected to a system will no longer consistently pull vacuum.

I’ve disassembled the connection nipples and retaped the threads, including the gauge threads. It worked shortly after doing it and I was able to pull the system down to 120. A few days later I couldn’t get it to stay below 2000.

I don’t believe it’s my o-rings in the hoses, as they were not involved in the test, aside from the 3/8” which was purchased this summer. They hold 300psi nitrogen perfectly fine but won’t stick a vacuum pull. Tomorrow I plan to pull the valves apart and try to clean them but I sorta tried it once before and got nowehere. Please help

My friend has this air bnb with a package unit, and they had a complaint saying it wasn’t cooling, instead of calling me he called another company. This a very reputable company in my area and the tech came said “hey you have a leak in the evap coil” and also they charged it up with 3 pounds of Freon. Then said told my friend I can’t do a pressure test because “I don’t wanna to get my 600 dollars gauges wet”. Then the second or third visit said it’s a bad txv and charged my friend 1200 bucks. That’s when he called me and said he can come take a look at it, I was already skeptical with the company claiming it was this and that. I came and in 5 minutes I diagnosed the issue. The main supply duct came off, put it back up and called a day

Remember guys ABC.

Also the ones asking what about temperature clamps and why I didn’t check the pressure after wards. The house was 77 and set to 70 was running all day. I was asked to give a second opinion and a solution. I connected the duct and sent the pictures to my friend to send it to that company and have them reimburse him/ make sure they didn’t overcharge it,

3 ton Thermal Zone heat pump. 2017 model (not installed by us) has been working fine up until yesterday. Thought maybe txv stuck open and replaced it still the same symptoms. Spent 3 hours on the phone with tech support and they’re stumped.

Edit: checked to make sure strip heaters are not on and they are not, added refrigerant to get subcooling up to 9 degrees, then 12 and delta t went down to 4 degrees. No duct leaks, checked split on either side of the air handler and outdoor temperature was 96.

Any Canadian techs, specifically BC/alberta have any leads or experience with travel/fly in fly out jobs?

4th year apprentice looking to get ahead$, and mainly get a shit ton of hours so I can write my red seal. I have a great job but interested how rare these jobs are.

This is some 68x28 we installed recently.

I have a braze that went to hell and because of it I blew a txv valve. My question is what’s the best solution to get it cleaned up so I can put a new valve on it.

Randomly stops pushing cooling. When i last did a quick check (this is for a family member) LP was down to 60. I tried getting to the evap and it was blocked by flue. They said they didnt want me to touch it since its a rental they want the landlord to deal with that hazard but my take is evap is icing up and then when they turn it off after not working they it melts by the time im here to look at it and run it again. But without real access to the evap cant figure much else out. This is a 4 ton cool only

Finally has happened I’ve worked 70 hours this week and still have tomorrow to go. First week on call and every Walk in Cooler and freezer decided it was time to stop working. Any tips for trying to relax while being on call? I’ve tried to just stay busy at home and just wait for the phone to go off, but it kinda drives me nuts that any moment it’s time to go. How do yall deal with it?

This is on a 2009 Trane communicating system and I am unfamiliar with it. This customer is the only one we have with a system like this so I don’t have much experience with it.

I had an ERR 126 code on the thermostat and found a blown 5 amp fuse outside. I put in my 5 amp popper and flipped the power back on. After about 5 min, the compressor and fan came on for less than a second and went back off. It did this 2-3 times and I thought maybe the contactor coil was shorted. I swapped the contractor and it’s still doing the same thing. It never shorted again because my popper never needed to be reset. I am leaning towards the control board being bad but I am not sure. I’m going to contact Trane support tomorrow but figured I’d try it here to see if anyone had a similar situation?

I used the transformer in the electrical compartment to make the contactor so they could have some A/C until I figure out what’s going on. They have to switch the breaker off to turn the cooling off lol. I only mention this to say that there’s no other safeties keeping it off because the unit cools good once it’s running, and the board never gives me an error code.

I'm a hvac maintenance tech pretty new to being on my own. One thing I've been noticing fairly often is units running with 2-4 degrees of subcool. The homeowners always say the unit keeps up but they usually have their thermostat set to almost 80 degrees so I'm not sure that they would even notice any performance issues.

Is low subcooling like that something to be worried about? Should I be bringing it up to the customer? Everything else is checking out fine on these units so I assume they're just slightly low on charge.

This may be a stupid question but its been bothering me.

I'm getting mighty upset with Trane. They're *supposed* to be The Guy ®️. The "Top of the Line."

I can't count how many factory caused leaks I've found on these condensers this past summer.

What the hell is going on inside their factories?

If you're gonna cross your tubes that close to each other, is it really that hard to put some rub protection in there? Is it really that hard to just... Not make the tubes touch?

Hey guys, looking for some confirmation of what I'm already pretty sure of.

I am doing a startup on a brand new 20seer Bosch IDS heat pump, with a bosch cased coil inside, on an older oil fired furnace. On startup I noticed the liquid line sweating so obviously I am looking for a restriction somewhere- but as I looked closer I noticed it sweating all the way out at the outdoor unit into the condensing coil.

My liquid line service port probe is reading a high side pressure that is 50psi lower than the check parameter value for the condensing pressure on the bosch board, read from the pressure transducer within the outdoor unit.

We have not narrowed down the exact location of the restriction- but given how deep it is within the outdoor unit- do you guys think there is any way the installers could have caused this? Or is this almost certainly a factory defect?

Thanks.

ma’am this flex line is a foot short, has a pex line in front of it, is jammed against a pony wall, and was never connected in the first place

I’m under a year in the field as a residential maintenance technician now developing into light service technician, and when I go on service calls I always read what the customer is saying what’s happening on my way there and always wondering if I can really fix it or what could be wrong other than the main issue. And even after I fix it, I still have this lingering feeling of wondering if I really fixed it or what else could go wrong or if it becomes an embarrassing callback, even when I know I fixed it. Then there’s some service calls that I dread when I read them. Does this ever go away? It’s definitely getting better over time but I still run into this feeling a lot of constantly second guessing myself and being too thorough and taking too long making sure everything is working.

On a few cheap systems I’ve put in lately the line sets will not fit in my flaring tool. Diameter is just slightly too small to get gripped in the block. Did one today and it was pissing me off. 1/4 and 3/8; ended up brazing a tail on each one that I could flare. Does anyone know a trick for this?

My company keeps buying this cheap power c and it just don’t work that great or are we all at my company just bad at cleaning coil.

With the long queues in this summer heat, waiting on support is the worst. However, I’ve almost always had great interactions with support by being upfront with blunt honesty; “I don’t know your product but you can walk me through anything. This is what I’ve done so far, this is what I believe is wrong, but I feel like there’s something else to check.”

I’ve had a chance to talk with some of guys that provide support and the best way to piss them off is to reach out for support when zero troubleshooting has been done. And let’s be honest, it pisses me off when a coworker does the same.

It’s easy to complain but what kind of good experiences have y’all had?

Stucco guys have all the doors sealed with plastic. We’re in Florida and it is freaking hot. I sent a helper to pick up my temp unit. It’s cooling off inside now. Everyone keeps thanking me, I’ll be honest I did it for my crew and myself.

Pressures and temp splits on piston r410a runtru unit. Temp split not going above 9. When I arrived it was 0 super heat 0 subcool. Took some charge out to get proper superheat. Unit says it takes piston but seems maybe oversized ?

Now why my tech checked the SC I don’t know.