30 Guests in a Hot House

I got it from the place I work, which is an automotive house. The R22 treatment consist of adding the oil at 1-oz per ton of A/C. You get an injector that looks like a big syringe, common A/C tool for oil addition. You fill it up with oil to the proper mark, cap it, then connect the hose to the low side. Run the unit and inject the oil. You can literally see the temp drop as soon as it goes in, and it stays cool er indefinitely. Sounds like snake oil, but I can attest it has worked in every system I've used it in. You won't find many HVAC techs that will endorse it, because they have nver used it. But lately most automotive HVAC suppliers have a similar product, so it may be more mainstream in the residential HVAC now. google ICE32. I see that the residential product is now called ICE-22, which makes sense. Make sure that's what your unit uses.

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And your suggestion

Can't hurt, but won't help much. Hard to do without reducing airflow.

Try the mister. It's cheap, easy, and it works. But don't use it all the time.

I may have missed part of this thread but it seems like a real good time for a general AC tune-up, including coil cleaning, filter change. and check/adjustment of refrigerant charge. If the unit is performing well, the other thing to do is attempt to reduce heat gain with drapes, insulation, caulking, and shading outside where possible. Awnings can help quite a bit.

Sunshine heat gain on the condenser amounts to very little since there is so much airflow. Ambient air temperature and amount of air flow are the controlling factors there. Misting can help but introduces potential problems due to corrosion and/or mineral deposit build up. Although it reduces the load on the compressor motor and thus saves a little electricity, I think reducing the condensing temperature and pressure can actually reduce the cooling because less pressure gives less refrigerant flow through the metering orfice, if you have that type system.

Don Young