I enjoy eating, and I enjoy paying bills. So, as long as the calls come in, I'll keep working. But, it's getting boring to clean condensors, and add freon.
I don't know how many I've done in the last several weeks. At present, it's my best income.
If you *have* to add refrigerant, there is a leak somewhere, find the leak and repair the leak(s), or replace the leaky evap or whatever. Assuming your only dealing with R22 systems, you need to go to school and get the training for R410a, then start selling systems when you can't get R22 evaps anymore(or R22 for that matter). For me to get R22 coils, its like pulling teeth....they are just not available. When you do find leaky evap coils, you have to price replacement coils so they feel pain....enough pain to want to replace the system instead of repairing it. $1500 to $1800 to replace a 3 ton evap is real good incentive to replace the system instead of just replacing the evap and hope they can get a couple of more years out of the system before there is another major failure, then have to replace the system anyway. The federal energy tax credit (up to $1500) is another good incentive to replace old systems as well as the energy savings of a new system.
But then you knew all this.
Most of the work I'm doing is Leer ice chest. Either R12, R416a, or R134a. System capacity about 10 ounces. The odds of finding the leak is near zero, so I don't even bother to try.
Yes, I do need to get some training in the new 410A systems.
If you repair the leaks, you will starve to death on adding cooling gases.
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