Hi all, first, thank you for this forum!
I have been having trouble with a home AC unit frosting over and wanted to explain the situation. I have called a couple local companies and want to minimize expenses if possible on this fix since it is not fully clear what is wrong. (attached pictures)
It is a Bryant, Model 561CJ060-A R22 Unit (The house was built in 1998, and I assume this was the original AC unit - no idea of past service records if any). It has not been serviced for the past 7 years I have lived at the house. We only use AC a few weeks of the year and not for that long (located in Northern California). Mainly just at night to cool the bedrooms before going to sleep.
There are 2 units, one for the upstairs and one for the downstairs. The downstairs unit has the furnace in the garage (everything with that unit/system works perfectly). The upstairs unit has the furnace mounted in the attic. The unit runs for about 45 minutes before frosting over. Once the frost start, the airflow from the vents is greatly reduced. At that point, we would turn off the AC and just run the fan to get residual cool air.
My handyman has tried troubleshooting the unit without success. He looked at the furnace in the attic (Model CK3BXA042000AAAA) and did not see anything out of the ordinary. No blockages or vent issues. He did some simple things to try and fix it/service it. He put in new 60amp fuses, a new 40 amp contactor, a new 55/5 capacitor, added a hard start kit, cleaned the outdoor unit, opened all the vents upstairs, replaced the intake filter, and oiled the fan motor. I have a Nest thermostat (set to cool to 70 when turning on the AC), but the issue still occurred with the old Honeywell thermostat as well. After all those fixes, the unit still frosts over at around the 45 minute mark.
I talked with a couple local companies. They said the reason it is frosting over is most likely due to airflow issues or low refrigerant. They asked if we had put gauges on the system to see what the levels were. My handyman had a set of gauges he used years ago when he added refrigerant to someone else's AC unit, so he put those on the service ports. Ran the system for 10-15 minutes and the readings were around 10 degrees Fahrenheit on the low side and 98 degrees Fahrenheit on the high side. One of the local companies said that the system is definitely low on refrigerant and would need to be fixed. Another company said they would have to come out and run their tests to give me any type of quote. (I would have to pay for the service call to come out regardless if I chose them to fix it or not).
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
What do you all think of this pricing and diagnosis? Given the unit is old, I am not sure it is worth spending the money to fix or to upgrade given we only use it a few week of the year. I can always just run the unit for the 45 minutes, cool off the upstairs a bit and then when the unit starts to frost, just run the air/fan.
My handyman had a jug of R22 from when he added refrigerant to someone else's AC unit years ago. He wanted to try to add a bit to my unit to see if it would be a temporary fix before we brought a local company. He hooked up the gauges, turned on the system and let the levels normalize for about 10 minutes and then tried to add more R22, but it did not work. The suction line was not taking it in. He tried both vapor and liquid mothods, but the weight of the jug was the same after having the suction line open and the R22 jug line open. We know the lines work because he purged the air from both lines individually when hooking them up. When throttling in the R22, the low line gauge moves up very quick, but then goes back to the same level. I watched videos online of techs adding R22 systems and have not seen this issue of the unit not taking it in. The unit doesn't frost over until 45 minutes, so we don't think it is a froze line or component blocking.
I was doing some research, but could not find anything on a unit not taking in or absorbing the addition of R22. At this point this job is out of my handy man's scope. I do appreciate him trying as much as he did though.
My quick research let me to believe it could be a liquid line restriction, something wrong with the TVX or bad schrader valves. This will probably make the xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx cost balloon massively as a bad TVX can be a pain to replace especially in my attic furnace. Any thoughts or guidance would be greatly appreciated. I want to try and have the issue isolated as much as possible to reduce the troubleshooting an AC tech would have to do and save some money. Thank you!
PRICING REMOVED BY ADMIN, PLZ FOLLOW SITE RULES
I have been having trouble with a home AC unit frosting over and wanted to explain the situation. I have called a couple local companies and want to minimize expenses if possible on this fix since it is not fully clear what is wrong. (attached pictures)
It is a Bryant, Model 561CJ060-A R22 Unit (The house was built in 1998, and I assume this was the original AC unit - no idea of past service records if any). It has not been serviced for the past 7 years I have lived at the house. We only use AC a few weeks of the year and not for that long (located in Northern California). Mainly just at night to cool the bedrooms before going to sleep.
There are 2 units, one for the upstairs and one for the downstairs. The downstairs unit has the furnace in the garage (everything with that unit/system works perfectly). The upstairs unit has the furnace mounted in the attic. The unit runs for about 45 minutes before frosting over. Once the frost start, the airflow from the vents is greatly reduced. At that point, we would turn off the AC and just run the fan to get residual cool air.
My handyman has tried troubleshooting the unit without success. He looked at the furnace in the attic (Model CK3BXA042000AAAA) and did not see anything out of the ordinary. No blockages or vent issues. He did some simple things to try and fix it/service it. He put in new 60amp fuses, a new 40 amp contactor, a new 55/5 capacitor, added a hard start kit, cleaned the outdoor unit, opened all the vents upstairs, replaced the intake filter, and oiled the fan motor. I have a Nest thermostat (set to cool to 70 when turning on the AC), but the issue still occurred with the old Honeywell thermostat as well. After all those fixes, the unit still frosts over at around the 45 minute mark.
I talked with a couple local companies. They said the reason it is frosting over is most likely due to airflow issues or low refrigerant. They asked if we had put gauges on the system to see what the levels were. My handyman had a set of gauges he used years ago when he added refrigerant to someone else's AC unit, so he put those on the service ports. Ran the system for 10-15 minutes and the readings were around 10 degrees Fahrenheit on the low side and 98 degrees Fahrenheit on the high side. One of the local companies said that the system is definitely low on refrigerant and would need to be fixed. Another company said they would have to come out and run their tests to give me any type of quote. (I would have to pay for the service call to come out regardless if I chose them to fix it or not).
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
What do you all think of this pricing and diagnosis? Given the unit is old, I am not sure it is worth spending the money to fix or to upgrade given we only use it a few week of the year. I can always just run the unit for the 45 minutes, cool off the upstairs a bit and then when the unit starts to frost, just run the air/fan.
My handyman had a jug of R22 from when he added refrigerant to someone else's AC unit years ago. He wanted to try to add a bit to my unit to see if it would be a temporary fix before we brought a local company. He hooked up the gauges, turned on the system and let the levels normalize for about 10 minutes and then tried to add more R22, but it did not work. The suction line was not taking it in. He tried both vapor and liquid mothods, but the weight of the jug was the same after having the suction line open and the R22 jug line open. We know the lines work because he purged the air from both lines individually when hooking them up. When throttling in the R22, the low line gauge moves up very quick, but then goes back to the same level. I watched videos online of techs adding R22 systems and have not seen this issue of the unit not taking it in. The unit doesn't frost over until 45 minutes, so we don't think it is a froze line or component blocking.
I was doing some research, but could not find anything on a unit not taking in or absorbing the addition of R22. At this point this job is out of my handy man's scope. I do appreciate him trying as much as he did though.
My quick research let me to believe it could be a liquid line restriction, something wrong with the TVX or bad schrader valves. This will probably make the xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx cost balloon massively as a bad TVX can be a pain to replace especially in my attic furnace. Any thoughts or guidance would be greatly appreciated. I want to try and have the issue isolated as much as possible to reduce the troubleshooting an AC tech would have to do and save some money. Thank you!
PRICING REMOVED BY ADMIN, PLZ FOLLOW SITE RULES
source https://hvac-talk.com/vbb/showthread.php?2222897-Bryant-AC-Frosting-Over&goto=newpost
No comments:
Post a Comment