Sorry for not responding sooner... life suddenly became busy from several different directions.
It was an indication to start looking into the cause. Lots of helpful suggestions came in from this group and also from the diagnosis's of the technicians i.e. coil cleaning. There was a lot of help from the group in checking out the electrical part. And for suggesting ways to clean the coils. Plus measuring temperature drops across the coils and on the vapor and liquid lines.
WAG might be very correct..... I'd like to test and verify operation of as many parts of the system as possible before giving an informed opinion. Still need to map out temp's on different parts of the system and check motor draw. Blowers are kinda noisy...so I need to check if these motors bearing require oiling.
Didn't get a separate quote for the outside unit, but this unit is through the wall and is located about 16 feet off the ground. There is a condominium hose spigot about 30 feet away. Plus the outside coil unit cover was painted in place by an excellent maintenance crew. So unless the tech was really motivated to do a good job......this would have been either a problem area or the job would have been more costly and time consuming than estimated.
His agenda was full of imminent doom which set off alarm bells. Part of the fault was mine, because I don't know enough about a/c systems to determine how truthful he was. So far he seemed to be pretty knowledgeable, except that his final solution " replace system immediately" might not be the only option available. Time will tell.
Thanks to the advice of this group, I located some coil cleaners online and cleaned coils myself. They started off caked with dirt and finished looking pretty new. Took my time, followed the advice of this group, didn't do any damage and with a little persistence the coils came clean.
It would be nice to have a method to verify how more effective the system was after the cleaning
Agreed.... this group is like having an expert at your side I enjoy returning the favor by providing advice where I'm qualified and have the knowledge to do so. Makes it fun to do home maintenance and upgrades. Guess we all enjoy working on stuff.
So how much more do I have to know before you tell me how to use the manifold gauge set ????