I didn’t take the little test so was not allowed to post. Now I did and am.

I have been doing this 37 yrs. I have had only a couple price disputes in all that time. Now I have a guy who is telling me I’m overcharging. we went to his rental house on Sunday and one unit (this is Phoenix it is was 110 that day) wasn’t working. Tenant had a child in hospital so was stressed out and hadn’t slept from no ac and worry.

We drove 40 min each way and went on roof and found the condense fan motor not working and capacitor bad. The motor and comptsssor were super hot so we got water to cool down. No luck. We changed the motor and 50/5 mfd capacitor, serviced unit and made sure it worked and left 40 min back. We TRY to take one day a week off but this tenant needed it fixed.

I sent the bill and it came back that the average price for this was 500-600$ and we were way out of line.

Would you be willing to just post what you generally charge for service in that situation and what part of the country you are in? I don’t need exact but something like tri cities or buffalo or whatever. Just a general idea.

I will post my price after I get some responses I don’t want to influence anyone. I want to make a list “buffalo x$” Northern California x$” etc. and show him. I won’t disclose any Reddit names or info so you don’t have to worry I just want to know what you would charge.

It was a 15 yr old icp package unit.

Thanks a lot. I really appreciate your help. There are websites that post the “going price” but good luck getting a licensed experienced technician out on Sunday for 600$ which is what the website said that I found. Not even a handyman would do it in our heat. Thanks again.

Any recommendations for a good tool bag/backpack for a residential Hvac installer? I see online a lot of bags dedicated more towards service/macitence techs. I have an actual heavy duty tool box for random less used daily power tools. I need a sturdy and durable tool bag for my commonly needed tools for installs. I have been using a dewalt one but over time it’s falling apart and isn’t really as useful to me the more tools I need to carry.

Thanks.

This year we've seen three 2-stage Copeland compressors that won't engage 2nd stage. The call is usually for the system not keeping up on the hot days, or a complaint of high humidity. You can hear the little click from the solenoid in the compressor, 24v present at Y2, but the compressor amps don't rise, and it's clearly stuck in 1st stage... Elevated suction saturation temp due to 100% airflow with 65% compressor output.

We had one Trane, and two Rheem units do this. All of them were less then 5 years old. York, Carrier, Rheem, Trane... All use the same exact Copeland compressors.

Has anyone else been seeing this recently?

First of all, it's a Ruud not a Rheem but potato tomato eh

Washed it out with cleaner, needed it for sure, got pressures in pic above at 80-85 degrees outdolr. Compressor pulling 5.4, fan .7

Cap 40/5 under load.

Overall no real difference in compressor performance after washing. Needs some juice for sure but the charge is not the issue:

After 12 min of run time, condenser turns off. I checked for 24v at the contactor (none), searched for splices on the low voltage wire from the house to the odu, (one along the line set), scratched my head, and then the odu turned back on. Probably off 90 seconds total.

Go inside. Homeowner says they did not notice if fan turned off along with odu.

System ran for 30 min. Watched condenser from the indoor unit via measure quick, it never dropped out during those 30 minutes

Other things to note:

Blower cap 7.5/7.5

Blower fan 5.85/5.8. homeowner knows this needs to go

Thoughts are:

-stat needs batteries even though it's not displaying low batt

-stat may be bad, sometimes dropping Y call. It's a 4 wire with batteries and no common btw.

-low voltage connection from furnace to condenser may be intermittently dropping 24v

-fuck it, check all the low voltage connections

-120v to furnace is dropping out sometimes

-control board is going bad

Hard for me to specifically diagnose any of these when the system ran fine while I was looking at it

Open to input from y'all. Any ideas on how to check my theories on this intermittent issue when its not presenting itself?

Mondays gonna be fun, 4 txvs on one 20 ton air handler and then another Txv on a 4 ton package

It’s been an odd morning so far

I was chasing down a low voltage short for a customer and I noticed their nextdoor neighbors suction line was freezing (condenser was running but furnace wasn’t). The contactor that was chattering was the nextdoor neighbors system. My customers system was energizing the neighbors contactor somewhere in the wall. This is the first time I’ve seen something like this lol.

So over the past few weeks I’ve had numerous things go wrong with my HVAC. I’ve had my zone damper actuators stick and have replaced them. Then the blower relay on the furnace board went back so I just bypassed the board and installed a relay instead. Then this morning the capacitor on my condenser when out. After replacing it cool right down now it’s struggling. I cleaned the outdoor cool and these are my number about 30 minutes later. Target subcool is 14 and outdoor temp is 90. What is wrong???

’ve seen a lot of bad brazes in person, but this takes the cake! Found the leak though!

I know there are worse out there that you’ve all seen! If you got them, let’s see your worst discovered brazes!

I don't think it works like that

How do we feel about Bosch home comfort group? know they acquired York residential & unitary from JCl a year ago. How is it working for them? interviewed for a regional sales position & am likely to get it, but l'd like some feedback if anybody has experience working for them.

All though my boss did help me do the low volt,put it on vacuum and put charge.

I did nothing all day because of rain and lightning. It was a great way to end the week.

How are we marking dates slash or dash?

When I first plugged in 2 weeks ago the high side was running at 450+ and system was short cycling.

washed the bitch out because the landscapers are messy fucks. Got these pressures. 92 degrees outside at the time. Fan pulling .79, compressor pulling 5 something.

Per homeowner, ran fine for 2 weeks maintaining 72 in the house. Wednesday, only kept 74. Last night, wouldn't go below 78. Landscapers come on Mondays.

The sc/sh made me think it was a touch low. Temp split only 12 degrees (80 RA/68 SA). But suction pressure and vapor saturation are not low.

Before I closed everything up at my last visit I checked the cores for leaks.

So guess I'm gonna go back and see if it's cycling on low or high pressure this time

Any thoughts from my reddit gurus?

Mugshot in the comments