not cold aircon

[Chazar]

21 minutes ago, frequentatore said:

I also clean air conditioners myself/water spray.

Ice = Refrigerant leak.

Very difficult to find someone with a leak detector. I had to replace the evaporator (part that looks like a radiator). 10,000 THB for evaporator+refrigerant and, 3 years later, it's leaking again (Air-cond. was 29,000 new). 

800 THB for refrigerant this time; it has been 2 months and it's OK... I'll never pay for an expensive part again, I'll buy a new air conditioner.

R-22 replaced two months ago by R-410A (a cheaper refrigerant).

 

This is  only a  9k BTU  unit, if its  beyond  hope Ill swap it  out.

[frequentatore]

4 minutes ago, Chazar said:

Yep i read the same, R22   is  still available  ok, this units  about 6  years  old Samsung, first time its  been a problem, Condensor  mounted on the  wall  high  up  not  in the sun.

One day, R-22 will be discontinued like in some countries.

The guy didn't clean the whole system before adding R-410A (safer for the ozone layer). I'll buy a new air-cond. if it doesn't work.

[Chazar]

3 minutes ago, frequentatore said:

One day, R-22 will be discontinued like in some countries.

The guy didn't clean the whole system before adding R-410A (safer for the ozone layer). I'll buy a new air-cond. if it doesn't work.

They can reclaim also from older decommissioned units.................of  course thats in the real world,In Thailand who knows.

Anyway found this  video re schrader valves  

 

[NanLaew]

I am not sure if the color of the wiring is relevant as long as the installer/sparky knows what's live, neutral and ground. In my experience on house builds in LOS, green is scarce anywhere let alone on grounds and as for striped green/yellow... well that's just way too fancy for its own good.

[Dumbastheycome]

2 hours ago, Chazar said:

what I really want to know though is "over  time"do they slowly lose  gas anyway?

Yes. Two main reasons. In your scrupulous regime of cleaning it may have compromised one of the flare unions or similar problem due to an imperfect flare at time of installation. Copper tubing hardens  with age and and joints can be disturbed.

Another issue is in the original quality of the tubing which if  copper although better than aluminium can become porous from atmospheric influence.

My pick is that if the problem has  suddenly appeared it is most likely to be under gassed.

I had a similar problem with a unit that was fine for  5 years and suddenly  lost gas. The problem was simply a leaking flare on the compressor end of the system.

[Beggar]

21 minutes ago, NanLaew said:

I am not sure if the color of the wiring is relevant as long as the installer/sparky knows what's live, neutral and ground. In my experience on house builds in LOS, green is scarce anywhere let alone on grounds and as for striped green/yellow... well that's just way too fancy for its own good.

At all my aircons the yellow cable has a clear function - see photo. On top of it the phases were wrong so that you got an electric shock even if they were not running. I changed this in the meantime. 

[Beggar]

59 minutes ago, Chazar said:

They can reclaim also from older decommissioned units.................of  course thats in the real world,In Thailand who knows.

Anyway found this  video re schrader valves  

 

Such broken valves are the reason why I will never allow them to check the gas if not necessary. They often try to "check" the gas to add some additional money to the bill...

[Chazar]

1 hour ago, Dumbastheycome said:

Yes. Two main reasons. In your scrupulous regime of cleaning it may have compromised one of the flare unions or similar problem due to an imperfect flare at time of installation. Copper tubing hardens  with age and and joints can be disturbed.

Another issue is in the original quality of the tubing which if  copper although better than aluminium can become porous from atmospheric influence.

My pick is that if the problem has  suddenly appeared it is most likely to be under gassed.

I had a similar problem with a unit that was fine for  5 years and suddenly  lost gas. The problem was simply a leaking flare on the compressor end of the system.

Ill be checking  all of these   as its  not "that " old have the original  guy who installed another one for me tomorrow , he  knows  how to be careful, seems the Wife did mix  up which aircon guy she  called  last time and the one I said I paid extra  too was  NOT the one she  called.

Tubing is  copper, Im very gentle doing anything with it but the original installers were tescos  finest CACK wrong cable  colours and thickness.

The  guy whose coming is the only aircon guy Ive ever  met whose careful, even he has to fight with his staff about this sometimes  though he told us.

Its  gradually  been going "off"  for about 3-4 weeks before i cleaned it so  Ill let him check the valves first  he  will have some of that leak testing  fluid.

[Chazar]

1 hour ago, Beggar said:

At all my aircons the yellow cable has a clear function - see photo. On top of it the phases were wrong so that you got an electric shock even if they were not running. I changed this in the meantime. 

hahahaha floating earth eh

[Chazar]

2 hours ago, NanLaew said:

I am not sure if the color of the wiring is relevant as long as the installer/sparky knows what's live, neutral and ground. In my experience on house builds in LOS, green is scarce anywhere let alone on grounds and as for striped green/yellow... well that's just way too fancy for its own good.

Relevant to me Id  rather  know whats  what, green cabling is easy to find I do my own wiring  to be safe...when I get stuck Il ask Crossy.

[sometimewoodworker]

9 hours ago, Chazar said:

what I really want to know though is "over  time"do they slowly lose  gas anyway?

No they should not.

[Chazar]

11 hours ago, sometimewoodworker said:

No they should not.

Not sure its  strictly true , some of those o  ring seals can fail as  shown in schrader  valves but im talking years  not  months.

[Pilotman]

21 hours ago, Moonlover said:

I have a lot of engineering experience gained during my working life, so I figured that A/C units should be a piece of cake. But I was wrong. After my hamfisted attempts to maintain it, I concluded that getting a professional in to do the the job properly is well worth the small amount that it costs (around 500 Baht)

 

The only thing I do now is clean the filters and give the outside unit an occasional hosing to clear any debris from the heat exchanger.

I concluded that getting a professional in to do the the job

And where do you ever find one of those?  I have tried for 3 years and whereever I go, I get a idiot who has less idea than me. I have virtually given up finding a 'professional' anything in Thailand. 

[sometimewoodworker]

1 minute ago, Chazar said:

Not sure its  strictly true , some of those o  ring seals can fail as  shown in schrader  valves but im talking years  not  months.

The last place I rented was over 20 years with no gas needed. My current oldest AC is about 14 years, no gas.
 

While defective material O rings or ones that are sealing against a moving part will wear or fail gas seal O rings don’t have a replacement schedule.
 

If you have a gas leak within a couple of years you either have a defective install/part or the structure of your house has moved and has put stress where it hasn’t been allowed for.

[Moonlover]

25 minutes ago, Pilotman said:

I concluded that getting a professional in to do the the job

And where do you ever find one of those?  I have tried for 3 years and whereever I go, I get a idiot who has less idea than me. I have virtually given up finding a 'professional' anything in Thailand. 

Well, I guess we must have fortunate. We bought a new A/C from Big C and they arranged for an engineer to come and install it for us. I was very impressed with his work and we arranged for him to come and do the annual servicing.

 

2 visits so far and he's does a very good job and leaves no mess whatsoever. I would posit that large retailers, such as Big C would not want to be having complains coming back to them so they vet their subcontractors carefully.

[Pilotman]

16 minutes ago, Moonlover said:

Well, I guess we must have fortunate. We bought a new A/C from Big C and they arranged for an engineer to come and install it for us. I was very impressed with his work and we arranged for him to come and do the annual servicing.

 

2 visits so far and he's does a very good job and leaves no mess whatsoever. I would posit that large retailers, such as Big C would not want to be having complains coming back to them so they vet their subcontractors carefully.

We bought all our 6 ACs from Mega Home. An 'engineer' came to install them, one of them didn't have any gas in it at all.  So much for big retailers. They had to replace the unit as it burned itself out within 48 hours. We had our kitchen filter water system fitted by a Home Pro 'engineer' the outlet from the kitchen sink just outletted onto the patio, he hadn't fitted the bit that went into the drain. I could go on to talk about the pool electrics, the gate, the building materials, etc but I won't bore you any more. So much for Thai 'engineers'. You are indeed lucky.