The Water Fountain Dilemma

I have written a few blogs about learning the HVAC/R trade at Erwin Technical College.  It has really opened my eyes as to what needs refrigeration and cooling.  I have also had to learn not only the refrigerant cycle, chemistry, electrical, and piping, but also how to put them all together. 

Our class had something interesting happen that really made me think about using all our skills and putting them to use on one project.  Case in point.  We were told to come over to the dental tech's office to look at a water fountain.  You know, just a standard water fountain. 

We were told that the water was shooting too far, and it wasn't cooling.  When it came to the water shooting too far, all it needed was for the cap to be cleaned out.  You know, the little piece where the water exits from?  It was clogged up with lime.  So that was an easy fix.

The cooling part?  Not so much.  See, this is where it gets tricky.  We need to remove the parts that cool the water.  But to do that we needed to shut down electricity to the water fountain.  Legally speaking it takes a friendly electrician to do that. 

Here's the catch 22.  Yes, you are allowed to flip the power breaker switch.  Yes, you are also allowed to flip it back on.  But if something was repaired it needs to be repaired by an electrician.  So "technically/legally" the water fountain at the school needs to be shut down by the electrician. 

(Sidenote:  This also depends on your city/county/state ordinances.  Things can very greatly depending upon where you are.)

Now, the internal parts of the water fountain were ready to be removed.  Well, not quite.  You see, the piping that fed the water to the water fountain is coming from the City of Tampa.  That means that is City of Tampa water, and if you want to mess with that you need to be a certified plumber.  So call in your friendly plumber.

Now the plumber has the authority to shut off the water.  He also has the training to work on the piping, but so does the HVAC technician.  Either way, we now come to the friendly HVAC tech.

Now our class could get busy repairing the unit.  It needed a good cleaning out, some refrigerant, and elbow grease.  Now we do everything in reverse.

We installed the parts back into the water fountain.  Then the plumber turned the water back on.  And finally, the electrician turned the electricity back on.  We let the unit run a bit, and it was running good as new. 

So, remember when you see a water fountain, ask yourself, "Just how many people did it take to get that thing running?" 

The answer is, "A lot."

HVAC: Home Edition: Undercutting the Contractors

I am now in month four at Erwin Vo. Tech for HVAC (Heating, ventilation, air conditioning.)  The last two weeks things have finally starting coming together for me.  The things that I have learned from the book are finally being put into real life practice.  And honestly, it couldn't have come at a better time.

You see, the A/C unit at the house had it's scheduled maintenance.  The company that maintains it said that it needed a few things.  First on unit #2, the dual capacitor was weak, and eventually it would need a new one.  The second issue with unit #2 was that the squirrel cage blower wheel needed cleaning. 

Well, after everything I've seen I wasn't sure how true it was.  I know a lot of companies perform the "inspection" for free, and then jack up the price on needed work.  What defines "needed work" can be open to interpretation.  Usually a capacitor either works or it doesn't.  There is no in-between.  Now I will be honest, in that, if a capacitor is weak it may be a sign of dying ...... sometime.  It could be a week, it could be years.  What you don't want is a capacitor to quit working, and then need an "emergency call" to the A/C company.  Then the price will really be jacked up.

So I wanted to get ahead of the curve.  I took a peek at the estimates for the work.  To change the capacitor was $194.24 (before discount,) and cleaning the blower was $256.10 (before discount.)  So if I could take care of this instead of the A/C company it would save a lot of dough.

My instructor was able to purchase the capacitor for $9.40.  I immediately paid him for it in cash, and was ever so thankful.  So when I made it home I got all my equipment and tools out. 

I took lots of pictures, so I will tell the rest of the story along with the pictures I took.  That way, you can understand what I am talking about.

First up, the tools.

And here is the $70, nay, $9.40 capacitor.

Here is the unit.

Here are the guts of the unit.

Here is a close up of the old capacitor.

I made sure to perform the correct math to make sure all the wires were going in the right places on the new capacitor.

So I put the connections on the new capacitor, and then drilled a new hole on the strap.  This capacitor was skinner, but longer than the old one.  So I adjusted the strap to hold it nice and tight.

And here is a picture of the all the completed work.

Honestly, I spent most of my time performing math and adjust the strap.  Other than that it didn't really take long.  So that was now out of the way.

A few days later it was time to tackle the squirrel cage blower.  Again, any little bit of dust on it can result in an A/C company saying it needs cleaning.  So before I even took anything apart, I took a peek at it.  You know what.  They weren't lying.  It needed cleaning.  It needed cleaning badly.  So I took it out and this is what it looked like.

There's nothing too technical about it.  It's just dirty, and I needed to get in there by hand and clean it out.  I used wire brushes, my big flat head screwdriver, and an air compressor to get in, and get that thing clean.  Did I mention it was dirty?  Because I looked like I rolled around in black dirt.

Again, it was more time consuming than it was hard.  I will say this.  My instructor showed me how to clean a blower just two days before.  I also knew that I would have needed a special tool to take the motor out.  If I could have removed the motor, then I would have used a water hose on the blower.  But since the motor was intact, I knew not to get water anywhere near it. 

Using the compressed air really helped.  I was able to get the little bits (and big bits) out of the blower.  I was surprised at the amount of dirt I was able to get out of it.  I ended up with a big ole' pile at my feet.  So this is what it looked like after cleaning.

Not perfect, but still ten times better than it was.  Once the unit was re-installed it actually sounded quieter.  That let me know that all the work I preformed was valid.  And hey, no one had to pay $450 (before discounts) to the A/C company.