Forum Replies Created
-
AuthorPosts
-
RichardJamesEsquire
ParticipantIt can always be repaired. But you did good.
If the compressor grounded there was likely moisture and then acid in the system. Most guys aren’t good at cleaning that up. Each new compressor would fail sooner as the problem gets worse. Throwing away more of the skanky piping better, which you did. That’s the safer, easier, bet.
On the coast a new outdoor units condenser coil must be treated or copper. Just a mile or 2 inland untreated coils hold up fine.
Most new units, the fins on the coils are made very thin to look good in energy efficiency tests. But aluminum oxides and then stops corroding. Fins so thin, if not coated with something, they will be gone before they stop corroding. Another problem is dirt and pollen get caught in the complex shapes of the “high efficiency” coil fins and need to be cleaned often to keep them running if there’s a lot of dirt and pollen around.
So yeah on the coast a 30 or 40 year old condenser coil with thick fins holds up indefinitely while a new untreated coil will be gone in 5 years. But a untreated coil should never have shipped to that location. And there is a lot of energy to be save with a new properly speced, installed, and balance system.
That being said if you did the outdoor unit why not do the indoor unit with something matching and high efficiency at the same time?
I should add, 15 years ago doing a compressor for 2k would have been giving it away. 1k? Glad I’m not anywhere near that business anymore. Kind of makes me think the compressor was still under warranty? Unit less than 5 years old? He probably got a free compressor out of deal, to sell to someone else, by warrantying yours.
ParticipantThe video. His conclusion is the same as mine. But he’s claiming inrush current was reduced by a 3rd.
I don’t know if inrush current is reduced at all but he only measured 1 (of 2) legs of power with a non RMS meter. There is no way that statement can be made.
Capacitors alter the sine wave so a RMS meter would be required.
Even if current was reduced, watts is actually volts x amps x power factor. Capacitors increase the power factor. So the watts, what you pay for, can be the same while current is lower.
and with the motor starting faster his cheap meter might not have read inrush current as accurately.
$11.00
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DZUAPQG/ref=asc_df_B00DZUAPQG5166614/?tag=hyprod-20&creative=394997&creativeASIN=B00DZUAPQG&linkCode=df0&hvadid=167164501807&hvpos=1o2&hvnetw=g&hvrand=9854735625585541051&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9031272&hvtargid=pla-314545815829
ParticipantShort version: not needed, overprice, uniformed/misguided/dishonest, 1 more thing to break, cheap electrical parts like to melt and potentially start fire.
A hard start kit creates a lot of additional starting torque. It’s a $15 part. There’s a half dozen conditions why one would be needed (some listed at bottom). But if you’ve never had any problems starting you don’t have any of them and it’s not worth $15 let alone 200.
Additional torque will get the compressor from 0 to 3450 RPM’s faster. So you will use less electricity…for less than 1 second at start-up. So yes you will use less electricity. But so little less you would never be able to measure it in any practical or reasonable way.
As far as premature failure (whatever “premature” means) additional starting torque is good, but not really beneficial if you don’t have the reasons listed.
The hard start kit is a great tool to try to break free a seized motor and get it running again. So if your motor was to seize up (locked rotor) and that extra torque then broke it free on the next start, or after it cooled off (Some huge ifs). Well it didn’t really prevent anything, it just sort of repaired it and you never knew. So that’s sort of true…should the motor have that one specific type of failure but not so to bad that the additional torque could overcome it.
Now if a technician ever tells you a single phase compressor (or even a fan motor in some cases) is locked rotor, ask them if they have a hard start kit on their truck and ask them if they tried it. It might save you a lot of money.
Would I add one to any and every unit, no way.
Needed when:
Low voltage, like below 198V.
No 5 minute time delay built into thermostat or outdoor unit to allow pressures to equalize between cycles.
Metering devise that does not allow for equalization during off cycle.
Really long refrigerant pipes, like 150+’.ParticipantIs there no AC at all or is it broken?
If it has air installed it’s fixable. I’ll fix it, don’t tell the landlord, and agree to the lower rent. I can swing by Mon. night after work to tell you what’s wrong with it.
If no air is installed the home owners associations isn’t worth dealing with.
ParticipantA- No body cares about you…its about the innocent people you let into your home as well as the fact that water main breaks are not bizarre events in San Diego or anywhere. There are no backflow preventors on houses and the domestic water in your home will go back into the mains.
B- Now that doctors and lawyers are a dime a dozen all of us, including you, should be very conscious of the need to remain relevant. We are all much closer to being underemployed and undervalued than we realise.
C- I hope your personality in person is not as ugly as your online one.
Yes that is a good point about licensing, you do need 5 years in a trade (that is not very long in my opinion). So yes not anyone can become a contractor only people with relative experience. I see that as a good thing. The bar for getting a contractors lic. in CA is very low and the quality of the work shows, even after the fact that you can get away with just about anything here as we have no freezing to destroy pipes.
I’ve worked overseas. We build things different here, better in my opinion, and foreigners are not familiar with our building materials and codes. Much of the work done by Eastern Europeans just off the boat I have witnessed has been or will have to be torn out and redone.
birmingplumb- I’ve spent some time with your younger son, he’s awesome. You must be a great dad and a great guy.
Participant[quote=spdrun]If owners can do the work themselves, then perhaps the “destroyed” tradespeople aren’t needed after all. Time for them to go back to school or move somewhere else. In short: let ’em eat cake — don’t create more regulations for the sake of protecting unneeded jobs.[/quote]
I already commented on the need for sanitary regulations and that home owners can pull permits.
“unneeded jobs” I think plumbers are pretty needed and make significant contributions to society.
The problems in the building trades is not that they are unneeded (that comment is pretty ignorant and snobby).
The problems in the building trades are-
-a vicious boom and bust cycle (has been like this since before the founding of the nation).
-less jobs opportunities in manufacturing for non-college grads.
-illegal immigration.I did not say the building trades are destroyed. I said the building trades are destroyed in Southern California.
ParticipantI agree with you both…except that plumbing regulations are to protect the health and safety of our community…not to create work or limit competition. your plumbing is connected to everyone else’s. Why don’t we have outbreaks of disease, because we maintain standards for sanitation. The homeowner can pull permits themselves. What really matters is that the work is done correctly.
While I have deep empathy for his situation he did bring this upon himself. The problem is a guy who was acting as a plumbing contractor couldn’t pass a plumbing test. A test probably base on plumbing code. A test which he was probably allowed to bring the code book into to look up answers.
Yes all us tradesman, even the ones doing the largest, most technical and difficult infrastructure projects should have been fireman instead…should we have known then what we know now. When I speak of the building trades residential doesn’t even come to mind.
A long time ago a residential plumber made the copper fittings…now they glue stuff together like we did in grade school. !@#$ runs down hill, payday is Friday, don’t chew your finger nails.
A good plumber is piping oxygen to every room in a hospital without the place blowing up and doing other industrial work.
A good HVAC tech is working for an industrial customer which has their own crew of HVAC people not capable of doing the work. Think central plant at a hosptital, college campus, where the buildings housing the HVAC equipment are larger than your homes.ParticipantI completely disagree with you. HVAC is not that lucrative and entry level would be more like $15 an hour. If someone cuts it they could make the $28 you describe after maybe 5 years if they are good. If your not in a union you can’t be an apprentice. I don’t know about the sheet the metal workers union but that is irrelevant because they are sitting at home right now. I can speak for the pipe trades union. A second year apprentice makes 60% of journeyman scale which is $28 and change unless he can negotiate something above that. There are at least a 100 union guys in town making over $35 and up to a dozen over S40. Probably a similar number or more (to compensate for lack of benefits) working non-union. But the vast majority of the guys driving the hvac vans you see on our freeways are making less than the 28 you describe, have many more years experience than the 2 you describe, and sit at home when there is no work. While HVAC has done better than other building trades the past few years because it is has more service work than the other trades which are primarily construction, it is still in a bad place and not lucrative. Essentially the building trades in So Cal have been destroyed.
I also find it funny that anyone would think the labor unions would care at all about anything residential in San Diego as they do zero residential work here.
ParticipantA Plumbing Permit is not required for the following plumbing work:
(a) Stopping of leaks in drains, soil, waste, or vent pipe. However, this
exemption does not apply for the replacement of any drain pipe, soil, waste, or
vent pipe with new material in any part as part of the repair.
(b) Clearing of stoppages, or the repair of leaks in soil, waste, or vent pipes,
valves, fixtures, or replacement of exposed traps in existing plumbing systems
serving lavatories, sinks, laundry trays, or similar fixtures.
(c) Replacement in kind of plumbing fixtures in any single dwelling unit, or in
any multiple dwelling unit building with 8 or fewer units.ParticipantYes dew point is the maximum, when the air is saturated and moisture starts falling out of it. Psychrometrics is the science. Enthalpy is the total heat content of the air. When someone says “but it’s a dry heat” it’s absolutely true. More humid air has more heat content than less humid air of the same dry bulb temperature. Your air conditioner is removing about 80% sensible heat and 20% latent heat (moisture removal).It’s bringing the dry bulb temperature down quickly, the enthalpy is going down, but it’s not removing enough moisture (latent heat). The warmer the air, the more moisture it can hold. Relative humidity (how much moisture the air can hold at a given temperature by percentage) may actually be going up as the temperature is going down. This is why I say your unit doesn’t fit the application. You need one that will remove more latent heat. This is done by moving less air across the coil while at the same time reducing the capacity of the unit. It lowers the dry bulb temperature slower giving more time to remove latent heat. From what I’ve read (cause I have no practical experience having only worked in dry climates), pretty much everyone living in humidity who goes to a variable speed 2 stage unit will never go back.
ParticipantYes dew point is the maximum, when the air is saturated and moisture starts falling out of it. Psychrometrics is the science. Enthalpy is the total heat content of the air. When someone says “but it’s a dry heat” it’s absolutely true. More humid air has more heat content than less humid air of the same dry bulb temperature. Your air conditioner is removing about 80% sensible heat and 20% latent heat (moisture removal).It’s bringing the dry bulb temperature down quickly, the enthalpy is going down, but it’s not removing enough moisture (latent heat). The warmer the air, the more moisture it can hold. Relative humidity (how much moisture the air can hold at a given temperature by percentage) may actually be going up as the temperature is going down. This is why I say your unit doesn’t fit the application. You need one that will remove more latent heat. This is done by moving less air across the coil while at the same time reducing the capacity of the unit. It lowers the dry bulb temperature slower giving more time to remove latent heat. From what I’ve read (cause I have no practical experience having only worked in dry climates), pretty much everyone living in humidity who goes to a variable speed 2 stage unit will never go back.
ParticipantYes dew point is the maximum, when the air is saturated and moisture starts falling out of it. Psychrometrics is the science. Enthalpy is the total heat content of the air. When someone says “but it’s a dry heat” it’s absolutely true. More humid air has more heat content than less humid air of the same dry bulb temperature. Your air conditioner is removing about 80% sensible heat and 20% latent heat (moisture removal).It’s bringing the dry bulb temperature down quickly, the enthalpy is going down, but it’s not removing enough moisture (latent heat). The warmer the air, the more moisture it can hold. Relative humidity (how much moisture the air can hold at a given temperature by percentage) may actually be going up as the temperature is going down. This is why I say your unit doesn’t fit the application. You need one that will remove more latent heat. This is done by moving less air across the coil while at the same time reducing the capacity of the unit. It lowers the dry bulb temperature slower giving more time to remove latent heat. From what I’ve read (cause I have no practical experience having only worked in dry climates), pretty much everyone living in humidity who goes to a variable speed 2 stage unit will never go back.
ParticipantYes dew point is the maximum, when the air is saturated and moisture starts falling out of it. Psychrometrics is the science. Enthalpy is the total heat content of the air. When someone says “but it’s a dry heat” it’s absolutely true. More humid air has more heat content than less humid air of the same dry bulb temperature. Your air conditioner is removing about 80% sensible heat and 20% latent heat (moisture removal).It’s bringing the dry bulb temperature down quickly, the enthalpy is going down, but it’s not removing enough moisture (latent heat). The warmer the air, the more moisture it can hold. Relative humidity (how much moisture the air can hold at a given temperature by percentage) may actually be going up as the temperature is going down. This is why I say your unit doesn’t fit the application. You need one that will remove more latent heat. This is done by moving less air across the coil while at the same time reducing the capacity of the unit. It lowers the dry bulb temperature slower giving more time to remove latent heat. From what I’ve read (cause I have no practical experience having only worked in dry climates), pretty much everyone living in humidity who goes to a variable speed 2 stage unit will never go back.
ParticipantYes dew point is the maximum, when the air is saturated and moisture starts falling out of it. Psychrometrics is the science. Enthalpy is the total heat content of the air. When someone says “but it’s a dry heat” it’s absolutely true. More humid air has more heat content than less humid air of the same dry bulb temperature. Your air conditioner is removing about 80% sensible heat and 20% latent heat (moisture removal).It’s bringing the dry bulb temperature down quickly, the enthalpy is going down, but it’s not removing enough moisture (latent heat). The warmer the air, the more moisture it can hold. Relative humidity (how much moisture the air can hold at a given temperature by percentage) may actually be going up as the temperature is going down. This is why I say your unit doesn’t fit the application. You need one that will remove more latent heat. This is done by moving less air across the coil while at the same time reducing the capacity of the unit. It lowers the dry bulb temperature slower giving more time to remove latent heat. From what I’ve read (cause I have no practical experience having only worked in dry climates), pretty much everyone living in humidity who goes to a variable speed 2 stage unit will never go back.
-
AuthorPosts
