Guess what most air conditioning contractors in Virginia Beach hope you do?

Yes, replace that old ac unit with  a new one.

Most will say you cannot afford to keep putting freon in your system, especially when prices are $100 a pound or higher.

Yeah, if you are 5 pounds low then you have a pretty good leak and a charge may not get you through the summer.  And, if you are paying a fortune for freon then maybe it might be wise to consider replacing.

HOWEVER, we still have freon at $25 a pound so it makes even more sense to try a re-charge first and see if it lasts you.

At least that way you are not forced into a buying decision you may regret later.

This will also give you some time to budget for your new unit and also get plenty of estimates.

If you go with the air conditioning contractor who says you need a new unit and don’t shop around you can over pay by several thousand dollars… believe me it happens.

So, don’t believe it when a company says you need several hundred dollars in freon so you might as well put that money in a new unit.

We’d be more than happy to give you a second estimate and a much better price as well.  Call today at 757-506-6488

Of course I’m pretty happy about this as the phones are steadily ringing, but there is at least one equipment manufacturer who seems to be having trouble handling the heat this summer… Janitrol.

Actually Janitrol is a name used by Goodman manufacturing.  They no longer use the name but they sold tons and tons of these air conditioning units over the past 20 years and you more than likely have one in your home.

Goodman recently re-tooled their production facility and now put out one of the very best products  but it was not always that way.  In fact, we in the business lovingly refered to the Janitrol unit as “Junkatrol”!

Anyway, it seems this summer there have been a lot of capacitors going bad on these units.  I’ve replaced more than 100 of them myself so I cannot imagine how many all the other 400 or so ac companies have changed but the number must be staggering!

Anyway, capacitors are easy to replace and fairly inexpensive for us to buy but most companies are charging over $200 for this repair… CRAZY!!!!

I sure hope you have not fallen victime to this.  The most common capacitor sizes out there are 30-5 mfd, 40-5 mfd and 45-5 mfd.  You should not pay more than $89 for the largest size.

Sadly, thousands of you have and I sure hope that if you are reading this you will consider maybe using my company mext time you need air conditioning repair in Virginia Beach.  My service call charge is just $45… even on weekends and capicitors are between $65 and $89, depending on the size, so you do the math.

I will save you a lot of money on any and every ac repair.  Please, just give us a call.  And oh, Carrier has had their fair share of bad caps as well but the price is the same no matter what brand you have.. the part is universal so don’t pay out of this world prices for them!!

That could be very likely what you typed into your computer when you noticed your house getting hotter and hotter, even though you had the thermostat as low as it would go.

It happens… and usually during the hottest part of the day… or the hottest day of the year!

And there is a reason for this in many cases.  As the temperature climbs, your unit works harder and harder and for longer periods of time.

The refrigerant, or freon as so many folks like to call it, that cools the compressor as well as your home, may be doing all it can to try and keep the house cool and by the time it gets back to the compressor it has no cooling capacity left and your compressor over heats.

This may be the result of the unit being under-charged, but whatever the case, as the compressor heats up it draws more power, raising your electricl bill and putting unnecessary strain on itself and another related component that HATES the heat… the capacitor.

If we step aside a moment from the compressor running hot and look at the capacitor, whose job it is to keep that compressor running, it stands to reason that it is working extra hard as well.  Capacitors have a life span and they usually die on the hottest day of the year.

Most just swell and get bloated and stop working, and so does your fan motor and compressor, but some will actually explode.  Nothing dangerous or hugely violent, just messy.

A capacitor is super easy to change out and is not expensive at all but companies love to charge a ton for them.  A dual capacitor, which runs the compressor and the fan motor, should not cost more than a hundred bucks or so to replace.  If it is a common size like a 35/5 440 volt capacitor you should pay about 8o bucks.

So to re “cap”  get it, “cap”?  That is short for capacitor… anyway, if your ac works in the morning or on cooler days but not when the heat really hits, you are probably low on freon.  If it was working perfectly one day and now the fan does not spin and you do not hear the compressor trying to come on, it just might be the capacitor.

Don’t let someone charge an arm and a leg for either the freon or that cap!

Over time, small leaks can occur in your system and you start to lose freon.  At first this loss just makes the unit work harder and will raise your energy bills and put added stress on your units compressor which uses the refrigerant to help cool the motor.

Eventually the unit will no longer cool the home and you realize you need to call a service company to come check it out.

I was just on such a call.  Thing is though, I was not the first company there.  The customer called another outfit and they were going to charge her $185 per pound of freon and would not tell her how many pounds she may need.

Now it is impossible to give an exact number when a system is low but we can know for sure how much the system originally held and give an estimate as to how low the charge might be by the pressures on our refrigerant gauges.

One thing to remember.  When a company tells you they need to add freon, make sure you watch them weigh it in.  Most guys will just hook up a jug of r-22 and make up whatever amount they want!

If you need freon, make sure you do this! 

Make sure they weigh the bottle before they attach it to your system as well as after they have added the refrigerant.  You will be shocked at how many service technicians do not even have a set of scales on their trucks!!

There is no way to know how much freon was added without a scale.  Many will tell you that they can tell by the pressures on their gauges but that is a flat out lie.  If you do not want to call out another company then at least lend the guy your bathroom scale so you do not get overcharged and then call the office immediately and complain… it could get you a discount!

And remember, very few ac systems hold more than 10 pounds of freon.  Most average around six pounds or so.  If a tech says you need five or six pounds then you can assume the system is just about empty and you have a pretty significant leak.

If he does not recommend a leak search then make sure you have him note on the ticket that if the refrigerant leaks out again within a 60 day period, the amount billed to you will go towards the cost of a leak search and repair.

I’ll attempt to do that in this section called “recent service calls”.

I may give you lots of warnings about how you can get ripped off and I do not mean to sound as negative about our industry as I do sometimes, but the facts are, you can get scammed very easily into doing unnecessary and costly repairs because you really have no way of telling whether or not you are being lied to.

For example.  I was just out on a call where the customer said the main circuit breaker to their outdoor air conditioning unit, called the condenser by the way, kept tripping whenever they tried to turn on the AC.

Now, when a call like this comes in most guys are drooling at the mouth because it could mean that the compressor is bad.  The compressor is kind of the heart of your system in that it pumps the refrigerant (freon) through the system to cool your home.

The compressor draws a lot of power and if it locks up or shorts out (grounds) it will often trip a breaker.  You can replace a compressor of course but it is a big job and can be very costly because the part is pretty expensive and you have to remove all the freon and put in new when the job is complete.

Many companies will inflate this cost a bit and try and convince you that you might just want to replace the whole unit, especially if it has some age on it.

Now, I will not argue with this recommendation so long as you are given both options and you have not used an inflated price for the compressor replacement. But, what I will say is that many times there is absolutely nothing wrong with your compressor when the main circuit breaker trips… which was exactly the case on this service call.

Take a look at the picture below:

If you look closely at the wires you can see they have melted and are now touching one another.  This of course trips your main breaker to prevent fires in your electrical system.  Thing is though, this compressor was actually wrapped in a sound deadning blanket and there was a cover over the terminals that had to be pried off… not to mention this compressor in located in the center of the condenser and these terminals are not all that easy to get to.

Most guys would have tried to reset the breaker and when it popped off immediately would have suspected (through ignorance or design) that the compressor had an internal short and not gone to the trouble of making their way to thses terminals.  And how would you know any different, right?

Well, thankfully I was there and took the time to check the terminals and was able to replace the wiring.  Another point here while I’m thinking about it.  Sometimes when these terminal connections short out the heat generated will damage the post coming out of the compressor where the connections are made and a typical “spade clip” will no longer slide onto the post properly.

So, if a technician has some type of morals and did think to check the connections before telling you the compressor was bad, he can use this as a reason to say the compressor or unit needs to be replaced and he would be right if there was not something readily available to address this very problem… but there is.

The picture above is of a terminal repair kit and was designed to use on all compressor posts even if the spade connection has been damaged.

It is not fun to install in many cases because you have to pretty much do it upside down with your half your body inside the condensing unit but it can be done and it will save you hundreds, if not thousands of dollars.

After installing the repair kit I checked the amp draw on the compressor, which was fine.  I did recommend a hard start kit which gives the compressor 500 times more torque on start up and dramatically helps extend the life of the compressor and lowers amp draw across the terminals.

All in a days work.  So, lesson learned? If someone says your compressor is shorted out, ask to see the terminal block to verify that it is not just the wiring going to the compressor that is actually shorting out.  If the repair man says that is not necessary you may want to thank twice about believing what else he tells you!

Finding labor help in our industry is pretty difficult and if a person can show up for work each day and have some idea what he is doing, well, that’s pretty much all it will take to get a job as an air conditioning service technician in the city of Virginia Beach.

Sadly, many companies will not go any further than a quick interview before hiring a new employee.

In fact, I just checked our local sex offender registry and one of the guys on there works for a large, well known heating and cooling company in our area.  As a father of a four year old daughter, I find this appalling!  This company should know better, and no, I do not believe sex offenders, especially those who commit crimes against children can be “cured”.  They do not deserve a second chance.

Almost every week you can read a story in the news where a convicted sex offender, given that second chance, has harmed another child… These people should be locked away forever!

Of course it is not just sex offenders you need to worry about.  I know of another company that is run by a guy who lost his license in another state for ripping people off, lied to the state contractor’s board to get one here, and then hired a guy to runs his shop who is a convicted felon who just spent time in jail for grand larceny… and is now walking into your house when you give them a call!

Please, just be careful.  I was shocked when I first got into this business at how many people would leave a key under a mat for the service tech to come in while they were at work, some with their kids home for the summer, and had never even used the company before.

I know there may not be any other choice but please be aware that not all companies screen their applicants…Actually, most don’t.

No company is perfect.  We all make mistakes and we cannot satisfy every customer every time. Some charge high prices that may seem unfair but have to in order to retain the top technicians in the area, because, believe me when I tell you this, Virginia Beach is not a mecca for highly qualified service technicians!  If you find one you hold onto him for dear life! 

However, there is no excuse for a company who puts profit above the safety of its customers!!!!!!

Of course there is an alternative.  You could just call me!  I may not be able to get there in an hour or at 3 AM, but I will get there in a reasonable amount of time, do competent work and at a price that is far below anyone else.

By the way, I do have a working relationship with another company called Sunrise Heating and Cooling should my workload get to large.  And, more importantly, the owner and his wife have looked after my children while I was away in the past and nothing is more precious to me than my little ones so I can certainly vouch for this other company to help me out should the need arise. 

One thing I would highly recommend that you do is when you place a service call, ask the dispatcher who will be coming out to your home.  Get their first and last name and do a check on the sex registry and with the courts.  Everything you need is right online.  If they don’t give out the name, find a company that will… By the way, my name is David Bocock.

I had lunch today with a great guy who used to work for me as a salesman at the last heating and air conditioning company I was with.  Super great guy.

He has been doing air conditioning repair in Virginia Beach for more than 25 years and has concentrated on sales for the past 15 years, working for some of the largestheating and cooling contractors in Virginia Beach… and does that job very well.

A few months ago he struck out on his own and I could not be happier for him.  However, as with every other HVAC owner, his first complaint was how expensive advertising was and how much competition there was as well.

Of course I had to pay for lunch because it is also Spring here and the temperatures have pretty much been in the 60′s for the past two months so no one is looking for air conditioning repair work in Virginia Beach at the moment and his money is really tight… Whose isn’t, right?

Well, this guy is a straight shooter and customers love him and he is one of the most honest guys you could ever hope to meet so I told him about the STOP organization.

This is a non-profit group that gets government money to make homes in the Virginia Beach and surrounding areas more efficient.  And you do not have to live at poverty level to qualify either to take advantage of this program.  They replace hundreds of units for free each year and yours could be next!

Anyway, I talked to him about it and set up a meeting between he and one of the STOP officers and hopefully he will start getting some work from them.  Does this hurt me?

No way, they are not allowed to give me all the work anyway and are always on the lookout for competent, trustworthy companies to add to their contractor’s list.

So, if you need a new air conditioning unit but do not have the money for one, give me a call for more information about the STOP organization and lets see what we can do, okay?

Give me a call at 506-6488

The customer had called another company to come out and check out their air conditioner and the service technician told them it was low on freon.

The customer asked how low and what would it cost to put new freon in.

The technician said it did not matter how low it was, the flat rate price to add refrigerant (freon) was $380!

So, even if they just put in a pound or two, which is what the large majority of air conditioners usually require if they are not cooling properly, the customer was going to pay almost $4oo bucks!

I put my guages on and the system was indeed low.  Now, when anyone else touches a system before I can get there I have to be cautious as to what the person may have done.  I’m not implying that the company removed refrigerant so they could charge to put it back, but you never know… this is a cut throat business and technicians are constantly urged to get their repair tickets up.. meaning, charge more money!

So, I put freon in and told the customer we needed to monitor the unit.  I could have charged them for a leak search but if there was no leak then I don’t think that would have been fair, so, we just filled her up and I will stop by next month to make sure we are where we need to be.

I also made sure to tell the customer what the other company would have been charging them for a pound of freon based on how low the system was…  $95 per pound.

Actually, that is not bad when compared to other companies but I only charge $25 so the customer saved a ton of his hard earned money!  I love it!

The air conditioning system( also know as a split system) has three main parts. They are a condenser, which contains the compressor and condensing coils, the air handler which contains the evaporator coil and the blower motor that circulates the air in your home, and the duct system.

 In an air to air exchange type system (as opposed to a water to air, or geothermal) the condenser is located outside the home. The air handler is located on the inside the house, and can sometimes be a furnace with an evaporator coil attached to it or a dedicated air conditioning air handler unit containing both the evaporator and blower motor and various system controls.

 The working fluid arrives at the compressor as a cool, low-pressure gas. The compressor squeezes the fluid. This packs the molecule of the fluid closer together. The closer the molecules are together, the higher its energy and its temperature.The working fluid leaves the compressor as a hot, high pressure gas and flows into the condenser.

If you looked at the air conditioner part outside a house, look for the part that has metal fins all around. The fins act just like a radiator in a car and helps the heat go away, or dissipate, more quickly.

When the working fluid leaves the condenser, its temperature is much cooler and it has changed from a gas to a liquid under high pressure. The liquid goes into the evaporator through a very tiny, narrow hole. On the other side, the liquid’s pressure drops. When it does it begins to evaporate into a gas.

As the liquid changes to gas and evaporates, it extracts heat from the air around it. The heat in the air is needed to separate the molecules of the fluid from a liquid to a gas.

The evaporator also has metal fins to help in exchange the thermal energy with the surrounding air.

By the time the working fluid leaves the evaporator, it is a cool, low pressure gas. It then returns to the compressor to begin its trip all over again.

Connected to the evaporator is a fan that circulates the air inside the house to blow across the evaporator fins. Hot air is lighter than cold air, so the hot air in the room rises to the top of a room.

There is a vent there where air is sucked into the air conditioner and goes down ducts. The hot air is used to cool the gas in the evaporator. As the heat is removed from the air, the air is cooled. It is then blown into the house through other ducts usually at the floor level.

This continues over and over and over until the room reaches the temperature you want the room cooled to. The thermostat senses that the temperature has reached the right setting and turns off the air conditioner. As the room warms up, the thermostat turns the air conditioner back on until the room reaches the temperature.

Imprortant!  Remember, the number one thing to consider when looking at air conditioning brands is actually who will be installing it!!!!!!

Every contractor that has a license to install heating and cooling equipment will generally have a specific brand that they recommend.  This brand choice is usually determined by what dealer gives them the best deal…. in other words, the lowest price on the air conditioning unit.

Many contractors would argue that Trane is the best equipment as far as quality goes.  In fact, they would argue that no other brand is better.  So, if I were to say that American Standard was as good as Trane, would they argue that point?  Most probably would.

However, American Standard actually owns the Trane brand name and both pieces of equipment are identical except for the way the cabinets look.  American Standard kept the Trane name because of its brand awareness.  And of course you will pay extra for that name!  So DON’T!

Then you have brands like Carrier.  They claim to be the largest manufacturer of heating and air conditioning units in the world, and probably are.  But, most of that equipment is for commercial use.  Carrier generally has terrible customer service when it comes to contractors working with dealers.  And, the equipment is not easy to work on or install compared to other brands so you will pay more.  Carrier also owns the Bryant name.

Then you have Rheem and Rudd, again, the same owners and these folks just want to go against industry standard and make the installer of the equipment pull his hair out trying to figure out the low voltage wiring specifics because they are not industry standard… again, you pay more.

I personally think that most equipment, at least what I am mentioning here, is very comparable in quality and it is more important that it be installed correctly than what name is on it.  NOTE:  There are brands that are lower in quality so I would stick to the names I’ve mentioned here.

One brand in paticular that works well, is easy to install and also has the best pricing comes from the Goodman Manufacturing outfit.  This unit could be know as Janitrol, Goodman or even Kenmore.  When the salesman is in your house, ask him or her if they can get Goodman products.  I have a Goodman in my home, its been there for 15 years now and when I replace it I will install another Goodman!

As the Goodman slogan goes: Dare to Compare!

By the way, if you are interested in who owns whom, here is an interesting site to check out:  Who owns Who