From: none@none.com99   
      
   On 7/8/2025 4:09 AM, Jim Wilkins wrote:   
   > "Jim Wilkins"  wrote in message news:104hoe1$360ar$1@dont-email.me...   
   >> ...   
   >   
   > Before the crackdown on Freon I was trained to build industrial   
   > refrigeration including brazing tubing, but I didn't have much practical   
   > experience before recovery equipment became mandatory.   
   >   
      
   I learned to service refrigeration from a mail order course my dad took.   
     He learned to fix refrigeration because we lived far from town, and if   
   we didn't fix it ourselves it wouldn't get fixed.  My dad had a buddy   
   named Paul Drudge who ran a refrigeration business out of Gila Bend (55   
   miles away) who would come out, and he taught my dad a lot, but when   
   Paul retired we were on our own.  Nobody wanted to drive 68 miles (from   
   Yuma) to service a country grocery store.   
      
   My dad was doing all of our refrigeration work when I started reading   
   the course and taking the quizzes book by book.  I might have been 12.   
   I think I was 13 or 14 the first time I got down the manifold set and   
   diagnosed the refrigeration unit for or meat display case, and topped it   
   off by myself when my dad was in town on a supply/parts run.   
      
   Just so you know if you have a unit that takes R22 or now R410A and a   
   service company says it could be fixed and topped off, but they can't   
   get those refrigerants anymore they are lying.  It is not illegal for   
   them to service those units.  The price has skyrocketed for the older   
   refrigerants, but it is not illegal to use the existing stock.  R12 is   
   about gone, but R22 and definitely R410A stockpiles are still available.   
     They just want to sell you a new system.  Yes, new systems might   
   technically be more efficient, but the reality is they also don't work   
   as well.  Computer controlled variable speed sounds great on paper, but   
   give me me a simple expansion valve, some motors, and an old Honeywell   
   mercury tilt switch round thermostat any day.   
      
   It might be ten grand for a refrigeration company to install a new   
   system, that could be properly repaired for less than one.  Oh, and they   
   typically seal up those old units and sell them off to companies in   
   Mexico who repair and install them.   
      
   I am NOT a refrigeration tech, but I do have a decent modern analog   
   manifold set, a couple vacuum pumps, and a recovery pump. It is possible   
   to get refrigerant, and "theoretically" if I were to replace a burned   
   out compressor on a 4 or 5 ton AC unit I would buy a recovery tank and   
   pump out the system rather than venting to atmosphere like some DIYers   
   might do.  Then I would hand off the tank to a buddy of mine who has the   
   right licenses and let him increase his inventory of tanks by one.   
   "Theoretically," the cost of the tank would just be classed among my   
   consumable costs if I were to do that, "theoretically."   
      
      
   FYI, If you were to, "theoretically," do that yourself remember that   
   modern refrigerants generate acids in a compressor burnout environment,   
   and they need to be disposed of.  Not reused.  Yes, there are acid   
   neutralizers, but I wouldn't trust them 100% with a new pump.  I would   
   use the acid neutralizer oil additive anyway in case I couldn't   
   completely flush the rest of the system, but I would not pump that   
   "burnout" refrigerant back into my repaired system.   
      
      
      
   --   
   Bob La Londe   
   CNC Molds N Stuff   
      
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