In theory how long should a heat pump last? MORE info

This unit I have has a compressor made just 25 miles from me by a company called Copland in Lebanon MO the heat pump it self is a guardian brand with a redman furnace. Still wanting on the guy to call me back as to what he has found to replace it with. I know he is trying to go with a Rudd brand but not sure if he can get one that will work. He told me that the reason the new compressor burned out fast was due to contamination in the system from the first compressor burning up an the guy not purging the system the right way. Oh and by the way one of the 3 window units just went out with a bad fan motor so guess I get to stay warm today. LOL

If you lose a comperssor, you should replace everything. In the old days, R11 was used to flush the acid out of the lines. R11 went out before R12. R22 went out in 2010. You want a heat pump, replace everything. As for brands, my rule is to find a HVAC company in your area that is third or fourth generation. If they were a rip off company they won't be in business that long. My other rule is to look at their trucks and people. Uniforms and new trucks with lettering and company name. I'm not talking about a magnetic sign stuck on the side of truck. Look for DOT # too. The professionals will have what I just told you and they will sell a good product. May not be the cheapest, but you get what you pay for. It may not be a bad idea a repair contract. Most good companies sell you a maintance contract.

George

Well the rip off company I had install it in the first place has been here since 1964 but they seem to always have new people as in you never see the same guy 1 year later and so far all they have done was cost me big $$ for poor service.

That should tell you something. The people I was talking about will be family, that is what I meant by 3 or 4 generations.

My well man is 4th generation, son of the owner. Great grandpa started the business. Very expensive drilling rig. Now there are 3rd and 4th generation well diggers, but their rusty equipment looks like it's mounted on a model T.

My HVAC man is 3rd generation taught by his father. Their kids are employees.

Just because you pay big bucks doesn't mean they know what they are doing. Fool you once shame on them. Hope you don't get fooled twice.

Do they wear uniforms and have nice looking equipment/trucks?

Look at professional/sucessful farmers, nice looking tractors, combines, planters. A pant load of new equipment. Trade them every 2 or 3 years. Multi generation farmers too. Get my point.


I can go to my court house and access public records. Go to your court house and see how many times your HVAC company has been taken to claims court. I can also see how many times anyone in my county has been arrested, spent time in jail, sued...it's all public records for anyone to see. A good HVAC company will bend over backward to keep their name out of court records.

George

This is another business that can be very lucretive due to several factors. They play on the fact that people know little to nothing about these units or how they actually operate.
They will sell you "service plans" that are not worth much in many cases.
I got a "full 5-10 warranty" with my new HVAC system several years ago. The 5 is for the compressor and 10 is for the rest of it.
After about 2 years, the circulating fan motor burned out. It happened late on a Friday night. I called them the next morning and they rushed out with a new motor.
It was under warranty but I had to pay for a service call due to it being "after hours".
They have the warranty written so that any failrue have to happen during "normal business hours."
Just another way to screw someone. How can anyone predict when something will break?
Oh, and Copeland also makes the compressors for those really high end, heavily advertised brands that claim to be so much better. They are not any better, built out of the same stuff. They have prettier cabinets and a load of BS backing them up. No one can stop the BS. LOL

Old:
I believe you have said you have a mobile home.

When the old furnace was replaced did the installer put in a furnace that was rated for mobile home use? Not only is the venting different for mobile home applications; but many of them have a blower that is rated for high static conditions because of small ducts.

Mobile homes are noterious for having undersized duct work, nothing will kill a compressor quicker than insufficent airflow through the evaporator causing the compresssor to pump liquid refrigerent.

Have you ever noticed frost or ice building up on the larger of the 2 pipes connecting the Condenser unit to the indoor unit when operating as an Air conditioner?

If they replace just the compressor rather than the whole unit make sure they do a flush, a nitogen purge, a proper vaccum and install both a liquid line dryer plus a “burn out dryer” in the suction line, since it is a heat pump these will have to be bidirectional dryers.

Make sure who ever you get has the insturmation and knows how to check the indoor airflow, or this may happen again very soon.

When I was with the county I had a challenging time trying to find a HVAC mechanic to do contract work for us. Being local government they wanted to use a local provider, unfortunately of the 1/2 dozen HVAC contractors in the area none of them were competent with commercial HVAC and could barely spell chiller let alone diagnose or trouble shoot one. Finally found a "local" guy that grew up here and works locally, but he was working for a firm in Green Bay (60 miles away). He eventually started his own firm and his son now works for him, he learned his trade while serving in the USAF. Interesting they don't do residential work, he claims to much BS and hassles from the homeowners and hassles trying to get paid. Cleaning and purging a system is imperative for long life, when we replaced a compressor on one of our chillers they were pulling vacuum on the darn thing for almost a week, they pumped until they were pumping out clean material. When we lived down near Green Bay most of the residential HVAC guys didn't want to repair anything they wanted to sell you a new unit- more money for them and in theory less risk. If you buy an existing house be prepared to get the big sell effort for a new unit the first time you need a service call.

I have got to kind of disagree with the new shiney equipment and the uniform thing.
When I contracted the site work for the new houseI had several people come in to bid. The guy that got it drove a 12 year old Ford ½ ton,clean,but well used. The most expensive guy with hard to pin down references drove a Fire Engine red Dodge Cummins,jacked to the sky with every chrome doo dad imaginable on it. I don"t need to be paying for his foolish spending.
The sucessfull bidder used all new leased equipment and did a great job.

The first time the system went out I did in fact replace the whole unit with a new heat pump thinking it would save me $ but ever since it was installed my bill did not go down any at all. Then when the compressor went out the first time they said it was under warranty but still cost me $700 plus to have it installed and they did not flush the lines then. Ever since I have had a problem with one side of the A coil icing up but the other side would be warm to the touch so I knew it was clogged up but they company told me no it is not it is just fine etc etc etc and of course I will not recommend them to any body and I also let people know about there poor service

The place the install this unit is suppose to be a family place but as I said the employees never seem to be the same ones year after year. The place I am going with is a pretty much one man operation but he does use a nice looking van and painted well and was or seemed to be a professional and did not even charge for the first check up

Rich, not sure if you are knowledgeable on the window type a/c units, I'm no a/c technician, but the last time that happened to me, about 2 years ago, I thought the same thing, fan motor. Upon further investigation, I determined by using my digital multimeter, it was the dual capacitor. Exact part for this 2002 kenmore 8000 btu unit, which is now in its 10th season, was $40 or so, if ordered from Sears. Did not have time to wait, so I went to a local supply house and sourced one almost identical in specifications and shape/size, that was a whole $12.00 or so, and its been working since late summer 2010.

The other thing I never realized until I took this apart this year, clean and check things out, was how clogged up the condenser can get. (coils and fins like a radiator on the outside, evaporator is on inside coils and fins if I remember the correct name for each and what it does LOL )

Compressed air, and you have to be careful not to flatten the fins, would not clean this, it was like a layer of felt on the inside face of the condenser. I had to carefully make some room, use a hose and clean it, it was almost blocked right off.

This has to be one of the most overlooked things on a window unit, I suspected something because the weep for the condensate would clog or reroute over the edge or another hole to drain out, sections of that thick felt like dust would fall every so often. I saw what needed to be done once I looked in there, also the styrofoam insert where the cold air blows through was covered in black mold, so I had to deal with that as well, whole afternoon on this sucker, but now I know its clean and it performs like new, seem to notice the increase in air flow and the air seems a little cooler. I think the mold was from shutting the unit down in humid conditions, like at night once cooled off, the condensate never dried, so now I turn the thermostat up, compressor goes off, fan runs and dries up the remaining moisture before it is shut down.

I now realize the value of taking the cover off and cleaning a window a/c unit, vs plugging it in and hoping for the best, and you know if its going to malfunction, will only happen when 98 deg F and 100% humidity LOL !

Remember the stiff double ended tooth brush in military rifle cleaning kit, they make a perfect fin comb so you can straighten those out and eliminate hot spots in either the condenser or evaporator if they get mashed, always happens on the exposed end of the condenser, that tooth brush makes short work of what could be a time consuming task without some sort of tool meant for the job.

Hopefully some help, hate when there is no place to cool off, especially at night when the day is done.

I don’t know what type of metering your unit has, TXV or Piston; but it does not make any difference if ½ the A coil is freezing you most likely have plugged distribution tubes in the A coil.
Any unit that is freezing over is without a doubt slugging liquid back to the compressor and that compressor is going to die sooner rather than later.

It would be absolute suicide to reuse the old A coil as it is, and only replace the compressor.

If you do not replace the entire unit make sure your HVAC guy knows how to clean up the system.

Make sure your guy knows how to check superheat, subcooling and airflow and is capable of making sure the system is performing to rated capacity before they leave the job.

If the last guy charged you $750 under warrantee and left it with debris plugging up the A coil he obviously never did the required clean up and startup proceecures and would appear to be either unqualified, unethical or both.

Being a former Navy E.T. yep I know enough about AC systems to get me to the trouble but not the fix when it comes to the R22 type areas but the fan and controls yep I can trouble shoot them. On that window unit I have also ready been into it once due to the fan bearings need to be lube and it is in fact the fan motor it self. I will work just fine for a few hours then all at once the fan will stop due to heating up. It is a Fedders 5000BTU unit way to small for what I am asking it to do

All the contractors that I use, roofer, tree trimmer, union electrician, HVAC, well driller, are licenced, bonded and insured. They will get a 1099 at the end of the year. No low bid, cash under the table crooks that don't have a business tax number and are going to sue me if someone gets hurt while on my property. Just so happens most of them have shinny like new F350 diesels one fire engine red and one white. They've all done work for me in the past, truly professional. I don't ask for bids. They know that if I get overcharged they won't be working for me in the future. I have what I call get-er-done contractors that do a professional job both in appearance and in quality. My last roof job, I called my contractor, gave him the address and when he was done he sent me a bill. Took his army of men 4 hours to put on 22 square of shingles. I do cost plus labor. Labor charge was $1200. 5 inch 75 Ft drilled well cost $2784 for everything. He has the new red F350 diesel.

If I were to eliminate contractors because they have nice equipment, I would be missing out on good people.

All my contractors own their equipment.
George

How could I forget you're a navy man, most of those guys can fix anything LOL ! Those darned window units don't get much attention, people plug em til they stop working, then buy another. When I saw what was going on with mine with that dust clogging up the condenser, I had to wonder how long a unit would keep running if it were not cleaned, still cannot figure out how all that got in there.

I spray out the condenser out at least once a year with water and if real hot out can do more often to help them not have to work as hard. Some how that 55 degree well water seems to make them work a lot better on a hot day

As for the guy who did not do the job right yep I agree and will never recommend that company to any body. As for the unit the new guy said yes he would replace the out side unit and the A coil but use the old copper line but flush them out before hooking them up

Government jobs require you to be licenced commercial HVAC, bonded, insured, fed tax ID. No fly by nighters, cash under the table, cut corners, low bidders.

Face it, window and residential A/C's are like computers. 10 year old R22 systems are like a 10 year old computer, out dated, can't get parts, can't flush them out, they are throw aways. Look at Old, he had a compressor replaced and he is unhappy a few years later. Throw it away and get new.

Commercial chillers are like $100,000 office copiers, you fix them. That requires an investment on the HVAC company to have the tools, trucks, education, experience and equipment.

A residential geo heat pump is one of those things where you will most likely repair it until it gets 15 years old and you get tired of the nickle and dime repairs.

a heat pump gets about 3 times the hours,in my area, that an Ac
unit does so if an ac lasts 16 to 20 yrs . 6 to 9 would be good . then the efficiency drops considerably because of wear .