¿Outdated Refrigerant? Most Common HVAC Scam and Why It Exists 

Congrats man. You are an official HVAC RU-vidr. You now have another vice to sink the little spare time you didn’t have into

The universe telling me to lose 20 pounds

@@SurfBrosHVAC 🤣

A toilet would be a better use of that space.

There hasn't been any new systems made since 2010 that use R22, besides maybe a few "dry shipped" units. 14 years is long enough, if it leaks, just replace it. Nothing lasts forever. I'll fix or repair old systems, as long as they aren't leakers. In fact, just the other day I went to one house thinking it was going to be a goner, but I was wrong. This house was built in 1950, had a newer American Standard furnace about 11 years old, but it still had the original evaporator or "A-Coil" in place, all aluminum, even had a TXV(!), and was nice and clean. Cleaned out the drain line, replaced the furnace filter. Outdoor condensing unit was a 12 SEER Trane unit manufactured in June of 1985! And looked like hadn't ever been cleaned. Had to remove the fan, and all the side panels and clean the condenser coil. It even still had the original old style contactor that GE used to use in the 1970's when those were GE units. Both run capacitors were bad, replaced those. Added just a few ounces of R12 to get the subcooling dialed in. Thing worked like a champ. Some previous tech told the lady that the system "didn't have much life left in it". When in fact, it just needed a good cleaning and some basic maintenance, and didn't even bother to replace the burned off common wire to the run capacitor. The only reason the compressor was still running was those units had a factory hard start and potential relay with a 250 uF start capacitor. Poor compressor was probably drawing double the amps from running without a run cap, and that filthy coil with a 1/4" layer of dirt caked on to it, but those big orange "Climatuff" compressors can take a hell of a beating. Sure it's "only" 12 SEER, but that's good enough, not much difference going to a new 13 or 14 system. The rest of the house was pretty nice, a lot of original stuff from 1950 in the house, like an old Hotpoint refrigerator in the basement, and some boxes of new old stock fluorescent light bulbs made by GE. There's a lot of old stuff out there that's still good like the old Trane/GE's, but unfortunately there's a lot of garbage from the 1990's out there too that's been neglected, abused, and hacked over the years. It's kind of like cars, sure there's some great old classics out there, but for every one of those, there's 10 Chrysler "K" cars, mid 1970's Mustang II's, and other such junk. Especially bad cars are ones when they first started putting catalytic converters and EGR valves on cars, and using horrific things like computer controlled carburetors before fuel injection finally matured.

I've seen dry shipped R22 units from as late as 2016. Replacing one from 2011 tomorrow

Tryna get these clients on the real. No clue how to land these big systems

@@SurfBrosHVAC they are big healthcare accounts we have. Maybe get in with some property management companies? Honestly they are a massive pain when they get that old. There is always something breaking on them. That compressor replacement is gonna take like 4 guys becuase it's in a messed up area and we have to lift it into place. A 06D compressor isn't light.

@@SurfBrosHVAC also I should add that if it's a smaller client and they have R22 systems I usually just suggest replacement as the units are likley due for it anyway. But we will usually do our best to get them up and running before that's brought up

I don’t offer this for residential. Only commercial. Maybe in a rare circumstance but basically never

😂😂😂

I personally would discourage you from doing the repair. Replacing a compressor on a 20 year old residential system especially if it's R22 will likely be more expensive in the long run than biting the bullet and just replacing the whole thing. Just too much money on a repair when there are more things that can go wrong

@@mrsmith5114 Assuming the system was low enough to not be cooling well but not so low that it is not worth recharging… average for us is between $1000 and $1500. We will do very small recharges on a maintenance for much less though if the system needs a small amount. I don’t ever offer to do leak repairs to residential customers with standard equipment as I don’t feel it’s a good choice for them to make. Commercial or customers with non standard equipment sure

@@SurfBrosHVAC Many thanks for the information and videos!

R22 can be charged as a liquid or vapor. Liquid is much faster and what most guys do. Here's an article by tru tech tools confirming this: trutechtools.com/procedures-recharging-ac-units.html#:~:text=Pure%20refrigerants%20like%20R22%20can,washing%20out%20the%20compressor%20oil.

I have used hot water to heat up r22 for a faster transfer speed. When I was a kid I used to help my dad, he used a heated charge cylinder in the 70s. It's just the way I was trained. I took the RSES training in early 90s.

R22 is an Azeotropic refrigerant, meaning it's a single component. It can be charged as vapor or liquid. Refrigerants like the common R410A is Zeotropic. It's a blend of 2 refrigerants, R32 and R125. Azeotropic refrigerants have to be charged as a liquid so that they stay blended.

Just because you can doesn't mean it's best practice to do so since you risk slugging liquid into the compressor and over charging due to the fast transfer rate. If you have to throttle it back to avoid that it's still best to charge as vapor. R410a is a blend so it's a different animal.

This guy gets it

Don't be shy... let's compare! Please list your answers below!

In residential in California there's a lot of weird laws and so I just do flat rate. This one I charged $1000. I just estimate a little high and name a price. Here's a link to the law: www.cslb.ca.gov/Newsletter/2010-Summer/page9.htm I charge $250/lb to commercial clients with an extra $200 for showing up to do it cause r22 is non stock for me. We don't drive around with it so we go and grab the tank. Not sure if I'll buy another tank when this one runs out but we'll see. You can get it for $850 online right now which is not too bad. It just may never sell.

@@SurfBrosHVAC sounds more than fair... try that replacement gas you and your customers will love it👍

Are you sure that law applies to service trades? Bad law if so.. doesn't save the customer any money and makes you a ton. There is no way to know until we get closer to done... you'd have to over estimate everything to stay alive..

@@pairofjacks1006 It applies to anything over $500 or $750 depending on who initiated the interaction, so yes it applies. And I agree dumb law. It screws both parties at times but just has led to contractors having to charge more in California to cya

You must be fun at parties

I don’t think my chemistry expert would agree with you.

I don’t offer this for residential. Only commercial. Maybe in a rare circumstance but basically never

That stuff is terrible, MO99 (R438A) is meant to be used for medium temp stuff like walkin coolers. The only thing that works right is the real R22. If you can change the oil out to POE, then 407C for air conditioning, or R407A is a much better choice for coolers. It is the only R22 replacement that has almost identical performance, no other blend comes close. In fact, you could connect guages and temp probes to a walkin cooler running on 407A, and you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between that and R22. Also, I've come across several systems around here that some dumb hack (I won't mention his name, he's not doing very well healthwise, and has since retired) but they just put 407A in them, and never changed the oil at all from the AB oil, and somehow they're all still running, don't ask me how the compressor up on the roof has any oil return, but I guess it works. On the other hand, all new replacement compressors come with POE oil in them already, so if you have a customer with an A/C system that needs a new compressor, and you find and fix any and all leaks, you can pull a vacuum, install the new compressor and a new drier, charge it up with R407C, and be good to go. It's also much cheaper than MO99, that stuff is going away soon if not already anyway.

@@SurfBrosHVAC MO99 is getting low in stock where I am, and at over $420 a jug, it's not exactly a bargain. It also has a very annoying high temperature glide

I use Bluon TDX 20. Great refrigerant. Love it. Upsets me that many hvac companies dont offer r 22 substitutes.