Consumer Advice - Home A/C

[101RRS]

I have an old reverse cycle air con central heating system in my house - for safety reasons the auxilary electric heating coils are disconnected so heating solely relies on the reverse a/c function. Works Ok snd is able to keep the house at about 20 on cold Canberra nights.

A few weeks back I noticed it was not longer heating and called the repair man who diagnosed a leak and repaired it and regassed the system.
Cost was $792 being $110 call out, $297 labour (3 hours) and $385 for 3.5kg of R22 gas.

This morning - no heat from the system - basically the same issue as I had before.

I contacted the service provider and explained the issue. They reviewed the file and said yes it looks like "another leak". On questioning they indicated that if it was another leak then I have done my original $792 and the new repair would most likely be the same cost. I remained calm and asked what the previous 3 hours labour was for and as they had missed the leak I had also done the cost of the gas (now leaked out). They said it could take days to find leaks and as they had found a major leak they did not normally look for more - the serviceman at the time did actually look for more leaks after the found the main one. They did concede that if it was the same leak I would be covered under their warranty (what are the chances of them saying it is the same leak??:(

Anyway I did not take them to task any further and booked them in for Monday morning.

My intention is to accompany the service guy and see what he comes up with. If he says it is the same issue and covered then there is no issue - however I don't believe that will be the case.

So - if they want to charge me again for the lot I intend to wait for the invoice and then right back to them either asking for reconsideration of the whole issue or if the issue is not a leak at all and something else, asking to waive the callout fee and part of the labour cost as the first service guy should have found any other issue in his 3 hours on site.

If the issue is a leak I will ask for all costs the be waived as they supposedly fixed the leaks first time around.

If the service agent does not agree I would then intend to advise them that I will refer the matter to the Office of Fair Trading for adjudication.

Does anyone have any alternative suggestions on how to deal with this noting that the service agent has not been back at this time.

Thanks

Garry

[Blknight.aus]

Grill the hell out of them..

simply mention the fact that before regassing any system is required by law to have a pressure test conducted and it must pass that prior to regassing.

I can provide the test info for a vehicle system hopefully one of out local fridgies can do it for a building installation.

[Vern]

Dave's got it in one, they should have pressure tested it (nitrogen test), they obviously didn't.
You paid for them to fix it, they didn't, if they topped the gas up, it should be leak free

[scarry]

We do this stuff all day,geez you got that R22 cheap.:o

Won't be long it won't be available at all.:(

Normally one leak is all you find in a system,we usually have a good check everywhere,but pressure testing EVERY system we find short of gas with nitrogen(after finding one leak) would increase the labour and material costs for the job substantially,often finding no other leaks,so the extra cost of the job is for nothing.

Obviously plant history,type,age,size of refrgerant charge,how much is left in the system,etc is taken into account,before pressure testing a system with nitrogen.System downtime,particularly in refrigeration is an obvious issue,as well

What we are not allowed to do is put refrigerant into a system that we know has a leak,therefore knowingly realising it into the atmosphere.

What i would do in your case is watch everything the tech does,the first thing to do would be to get him/her to show you where the other leak was then go from there.

The quality of the actual leak detecter is also another issue,we have recently purchased the latest and they are miles ahead of the old one's we used to use.In fact the new type will pick up a leak where the older type didn't detect anything.

[101RRS]

Thanks for all the responses.

So if I understand correctly when the technician found the leak and repaired it (which was on the outside unit - just a cap with a perished rubber seal) the system should have then been filled with nitrogen for a pressure/leak test prior to refilling.

The machine that the tech used to detect the leak was a small handheld machine that beeped and then went to a continuous beep when the leak was detected. The inside and outside units are about 6m apart and I was with the tech when he tested the units and the pipes between them - it was only the outside unit that beeped continuously.

I turned on the a/c this evening and it started heating with 35 degrees coming out the vents but after 30mins use the vent temp had dropped to 13 degrees so I had to switch back to my little fan heater to stay warm. This also happened before I had it repaired would heat on start but then dropped out.

Oh last time it had 1.5kgs of gas still in the system which they evacuated with a vacuum pump (I assume I this cannot be used again and I get no credit for) and after the repair refilled with 3.5kgs of gas so I assume at the moment it still has about 1.5kgs left - so it has taken about 3 weeks for the system to loose 2kgs of gas.

I appreciate the responses.

Cheers

Garry

[Ratel10mm]

What Paul said, plus if your system is pretty old, it is possible that the pipe has got weak (due to corrosion for e. g. ) & there may be (new) leaks other than the repaired one. It does happen I'm afraid.
Also there may be another fault, electrical or mechanical. I have had it happen to me.

R22 price sounds cheap. Labour sounds high. Doesn't the callout fee include the first half hour on site or something?
Around here $80/hr. is the going rate for domestic & general contractors, up to something over $100 for specialist stuff.

Now:

Thanks for all the responses.

So if I understand correctly when the technician found the leak and repaired it (which was on the outside unit - just a cap with a perished rubber seal) the system should have then been filled with nitrogen for a pressure/leak test prior to refilling.
No. Since there was still R22 in the system, it would have had to be recovered. Then the system could be pressure tested with OFN (Nitrogen).
The schrader valve should not have been leaking in the first place. The cap is there mainly to keep dirt & moisture out of the valve, plus as a back up in case the valve leaks. If I find a leaking schrader, I first try tightening it. If that fails, I replace the valve core. I'd also have replaced the cap with a new one. Or possibly replaced the o ring. (You used to be able to buy them as a spare part.)
Anyway, recovering the refrigerant, pressure testing etc. all costs money. The tech. has to make a judgement call on how necessary it is.

The machine that the tech used to detect the leak was a small handheld machine that beeped and then went to a continuous beep when the leak was detected. The inside and outside units are about 6m apart and I was with the tech when he tested the units and the pipes between them - it was only the outside unit that beeped continuously.
An electronic leak detector. As Paul says, like all things some are better than others.

I turned on the a/c this evening and it started heating with 35 degrees coming out the vents but after 30mins use the vent temp had dropped to 13 degrees so I had to switch back to my little fan heater to stay warm. This also happened before I had it repaired would heat on start but then dropped out.

Oh last time it had 1.5kgs of gas still in the system which they evacuated with a vacuum pump (I assume I this cannot be used again and I get no credit for) and after the repair refilled with 3.5kgs of gas so I assume at the moment it still has about 1.5kgs left - so it has taken about 3 weeks for the system to loose 2kgs of gas.
That amoint of R22 should have been recovered, not dumped to atmosphere. If the tech used a vac pump, he should have pulled <500microns & left it for a while - say 30mins for a system your size. Basically (there are exceptions) if the system had no leaks, the vacuum would not rise.

I appreciate the responses.

Cheers

Garry

Sorry I can't make my replies more obvious - I'm on my phone & it's too awkward to make my text a different colour.

Conclusion? From what you've told us the tech may not have been the best. Ditto his employer. But had he done the full pressure test, etc. it may have got into 'install a new system' territory financially.
If I were you, I'd slack off the cap & pour a thick solution of washing up liquid & water over the cap & thread. If it's on the larger diameter pipe, switch the unit off & leave it for a while for the pressure to build up. If it's the smaller diameter pipe, run the system in coooing to get the highest pressure possible. If there's a leak & there's any significant pressure in that part of the system, the solution will form bubbles. Rinse off afterward as dish washing liquid tends to be corrosive to copper pipe. The system should not be in a vacuum so it's unlikely your solution will find its way inside.
At least then you know whether to read them the riot act or just keep a discrete eye on the tech. at the next visit.

[101RRS]

The tech has just been here.

To recap - the A/c had been not heating or cooling but on occasion would start and heat for a while then go cold. That is what the technician was tld a month ago when he came to fix it.

He diagnosed low gas and a gas leak which there was as I heard his detector change tone etc. When that techo left the heating was working but three weeks later the A/c had the same issue previously which had cost $800 to fix.

A technician (a different one but one who has previously worked on it) came this morning and tested the system as said it was still full of gas :confused:. The system was providing some heat so he set it at 30 and waited for it to switch off but there was no way it would get to 30 so I turned it down to 23 and it switched off - when it restarted the air was cold and the techo said the compressor was not working.

Turns out there are two iusses - main issue is the compressor starter relay was suffering some issues and was not working all the time and needed replacement. The second issue was low gas and the leak - the first techo picked up the gas issue but not the compressor relay.

So now all fixed and waiting for the second invoice. Given there are two separate issues that should have been picked up first time around I am happy to pay the call out, gas and labour and the second labour and cost of the relay but I don't think I should have to pay the second callout fee if they charge it.

As the relay issue should have been picked up first time around, if there is a callout fee on the second invoice I will ask it to be waived.

Garry

[scarry]

I would in this instance waive the call out fee as well,although it was probably an intermittent fault(with the relay) and did not raise it's head while the last tech was there,so did not notice.

This sort of thing does happen every so often,part of life being a repairer.

[ezyrama]

Bloody Fridgies, you cant trust any of them, can you Matthew????:p
As scarry said though, this sort of thing happens all the time in the service industry, you repair a fault on a unit one day and craps out the next with a completely different fault. People look at refrigeration and air con as one item where like a car it is made up of a lot of different component which can and will fail if one item puts pressure on another.Hopefully yours is fixed now though. The R22 price you got was a very good price though. R22 is being phased out over the next 2-3 years but there is a very good drop in replacement on the market at the moment, so if you have problems in the future you shouldn't have too much trouble getting it repaired and it is now cheaper than R22.