I've been reading deja articles for hours on separate days - but I would like some quick advice if possible. I'll try to keep the story short.
Moved into a condo; very old Lennox upflow heating/2-ton air conditioning unit.
try evacuating for 1 hour and recharging the CORRECT manufacture's recommended amount of virgin R-22 freon
also, comb out all mashed-in places on condenser coil and evaporator coil
with unit off, clean condenser with 1/2 Alki-Foam, and 1/2 water mix leave on 5 minutes, rinse with hose
In alt.home.repair on Thu, 28 Jul 2005 03:02:58 -0400 "papaya" posted:
I've tried that with what we call a butter knife, an all-metal knife with a slightly serrated blade that isn't sharp enough to cut meat.
And also a small screwdriver iirc.
And I bought a fin comb, and tried that too. One with several sides for different numbers of fins per inch.
It still seems to take forever. Is their a trick?
Should I use some sort of lubricant? What?
thanks..
Meirman
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How much space is below the furnace closet floor? Lack of Return Air Grille Area could very well be restricting the airflow to & through the cooling coil!
Check thoroughly for hot air leaks from the attic down through the wall petitions to under the air handler! These are common problems I have found over the years of servicing A/C systems. If you have room put large return air filter grilles along the sides under the furnace closet floor, do so. This will allow you to have more open air return area for the lint loading of filters. (See Linked page.) If you can use the other return filter grilles, if airflow is then not adequate, remove the furnace filter.
Well, if your "Design Conditions" are similar to mine": 88-dry bulb,
73-wet bulb , around 49% Relative Humidity, then "a mere half ton 6,000-Btu/hr" window shaker with a floor fan setup like mine would get you to 76-F and to 50% RH even on high humidity days. Your unit is 2-tons or 24,000-Btu/hr, 4 times the capacity of mine!What do you want to bet that your 2-tonner is not getting anywhere near
2-tons of heat transfer from the indoor air to the outdoors! Also, it must not be reducing the humidity sufficiently or you would feel very comfortable at 76-F.My 6,000-Btu/hr Whirlpool remote control room A/C only cost around $130.00 and cools well within the comfort zone around 920 sq. ft. on the hottest days imaginable, 112 Heat Index days! Am I a happy camper, you bet I am!
With the power disconnected check the blower wheel blades; if they are filled with lint then the evaporator coil is plugged and insulated too. No system should be charged with refrigerant until it is confirmed that the evaporator has an optimal heatload being absorbed by it!
The condenser may appear to be clean to you, but could be blocked between the fins and/or the fins cold be insulated by wrong cleaning methods such as using oil based detergents when it was cleaned in the past. (It is very old!) Both coils should be thoroughly cleaned with a good coil cleaner; the evaporator should be thoroughly cleaned with a good evaporator cleaner.
Only then, should the system charge be balanced:
If there has been no filter in your unit then for sure the evap coil is dirty. That being said, it does not explain the lack of cooling on the lineset or the air coming out of registers. You need a competent tech to come and check the whole system over. Could very well be a leak on an old system on the other hand techs who just "throw in a pound of freon" because they don't know any better are not helping the situation. Also the advice to " vacuum the system down and weigh in the charge" is useless unless you can find out where the system is leaking.
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