II

9/13/2007 11:40:19 AM

Quote :

"You probably didn't need the technical explanation of why your shit broke, but I thought it might be educational."

I do appreciate the explanation. The service cost $450 total (3 hours). While that may be a lot (it is to me), I thought it was decent for a right now fix. The only thing they didn't do was purge the line with nitrogen. While I'm no expert, all of the people who came out to look at the system told me that's what needed to be done for it to be done right. They didn't do that, just reclaimed the orig r-22, cut the compressor out, installed a receiver/dryer, pumped the system full of r-22, evacuated it, pulled a vacuum for an hour, charged the system up/the end.

does anyone know if not running nitrogen through the system will do harm later on even with the receiver/dryer in place?

9/13/2007 11:40:43 AM

Quote :

"can you buy freon without some sort of license?"

some of it. r22 requires you to be licensed, which is what's commonly used in home a/c systems.

there's a good reason for this. charging a system is NOT something for the weekend warrior to jump into. besides the high potential for screwing something up, systems can build some serious pressure and there can be harmful or even deadly explosions.

9/13/2007 2:26:31 PM

^^ It's not really necessary unless the compressor dumped a bunch of oil into the refrigerant lines. Running nitrogen through the system is really only done in very specific situations. It sounds like they did exactly what I would have done if I was replacing it.

[Edited on September 13, 2007 at 2:28 PM. Reason : not enough ^s]

9/13/2007 2:27:44 PM

^^ There are environmental reasons also. R134a isn't chlorinated like R12 and R22. Thus, its not very harmful to ozone and it's not a huge deals if it's released into the atmosphere. Chlorinated refrigerants are a big deal if released into the atmosphere. That's why reclamation if part of the training to get a license and a condition of keeping one.

9/13/2007 2:30:46 PM