My system was switched over to R-421a when the compressor was replaced. I was told $80 per pound which seems insane. I can see it online for $250'ish for 25 lbs. I expect a markup but that seems rather huge /trump voice.... Is this price unreasonable or is it the norm?
No. That was covered by home warranty. This is strictly refrigerant cost. Warranty only covers $10 per pound. I knew R22 was crazy high but it's environmentally safe illegitimate cousin seems to be charging a pretty stiff fee too.
That’s pretty strong if it’s just the refrigerant. With labor included it would be very reasonable since you have to recover the remaining R22 and evacuate the system. Presumably they fixed a leak, or replaced a component?
He claimed he couldn't recover the R22 due to the compressor being locked up (it had shorted to ground). I know that's BS and I'm about 99% sure he vented it to atmosphere which is a big deal. I also know there were no leaks and the charge was good prior to this. The charge is for refrigerant only. Everything else was paid by home warranty. Interesting enough I haven't gotten an invoice from them get. The work was new compressor and they added a drier.
Okay, got it. The bigger issue is that R421A does not behave like R22, despite what the literature says. You can get away with it in some applications, but not all. Hopefully yours is in the former category. That being said, $80 per pound is kind of ridiculous for R421A, and that's coming from someone who usually defends high prices because of the massive overhead associated with running a service business. My company charges $97 per pound for R22 right now, but that number includes labor. You should have been able to get R22 for the money you paid for R421, which would have been a much better bet. Home warranties can be a cluster f#ck. We avoid them and so do most reputable companies. The companies willing to work with them are usually bottom of the barrel, but I'm generalizing. We actually still work for one of them, but have fired all others. My guess is that your contractor is trying to double dip, because the warranty purchased the compressor directly and took away his ability to earn margin on it. That's a common practice and one I refuse to participate in, hence firing them. You're correct about recovering the R22. Compressor failure or not, you have to recover and recycle refrigerant. It's the law. The really scary part is that if he didn't recover the refrigerant, he probably didn't nitrogen purge while he brazed in the new compressor, or install filter/driers to deal with contamination, or triple evacuate the system to ensure that it's dry, or properly charge the new system. This stuff makes me crazy...
He did pull a vacuum on the new one but doubt he did a purge. I was at the mercy of the warranty company which we dropped due to the terrible service. I still have yet to get an invoice from the HVAC and I'm not looking for it. I'm wondering of since I started asking questions if they're gonna just not send me one. I'll call them out on not recovering my R22 still if I do get one. Question is, if he recovered the R22 from the system would there be any reason he couldn't have reused it?
Yes. Some guys do reuse refrigerant, but in your case it would have been bad. When compressors burn out, they cook the refrigerant and oil in the compressor and produce acid. If you return that acid-contaminated refrigerant to the system, it will cause another failure. My contention is that you shouldn't ever reuse refrigerants because you never know what was in your recovery cylinder before you got it. Even if you start with an empty cylinder, there's no saying that the last guy didn't recover a burnout into it. There's really no good way to clean the cylinders, so better safe than sorry.
I hear you, but recovering and recycling refrigerant is a huge expense in my business. It pisses me off a little that so many guys are dumping it. It's bad for the environment, and I have to explain that we're more expensive than Billy Bob's Heating and AC, because we do shit the right way.
I gotcha there. I was more annoyed when I thought he was lazy and trying to give me the run around and forcing me to recharge the system with their stuff. We dropped the warranty company already as we would've probably had a new system put in instead. Would've cost more but would've been fixed ASAP vs the crap we went through.
