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Been sitting here pondering where the last 40 years

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Unknown
Unknown
in A-C, Heat Pumps & Refrigeration
   Have gone. Most tech today were not even born before the 72 oil embargo.There was only 5 makers of heat-pumps and with-in 12 months there was a total over 40, and boys and girls there were some real dogs out there. I mean real bowwow ( LOL ). Nobody is going to go unscathed tonight folks. Westinghouse and their famed flooded evaporator, took 30 lbs of r-22 to charge a 3 ton unit. Square D and their electronic expansion valve that worked maybe 20% of the time, Fedder's and their famed aluminium  block compressor, Marv Air can't find anything good to say about that bow wow. Amana had the only heat-pump that energized the S.O.V. in the heat mode 

   York and their defrost board ( LOL ) the board cost almost as much as the unit itself. Trane before they bought G.E. had their hand in the mix to; but the factory went on strike and nobody knew for sure what you would get one order to the next. Well that left Carrier, Lennox and General Electric  and they to had problems from time to time. The only issue Carrier had was they used a compression type of fitting, well we all forgot that soft tubing is oval to a degree and will leak sooner or later. Lennox had the line-set full of little steel balls for metering the refrigerant flow, that worked great until you had to cut the line-set .The big G.E. boys and that stupid Dwyer / Klixon  defrost control, they finally did away with that.

  Now back to the main plot ( LOL ) sitting in the shop late one very cold Thursday night. The ole man was snorting and raising the roof over a call-back that came in. Well on Thursday nights that was free beer at the shop night and I was leading the group of 7 techs. My dad was so cheap he wouldn't let us turn the heat on in the back until it got down to 58. Okay fellows I am getting tired will finish up tomorrow.   

    

Comments

  • unclejohn
    unclejohn Member Posts: 1,833
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    I liked

    The Champion heat pump and the bic lighter shaped thing you stuck in the defrost board to by pass the time delays.
  • icesailor
    icesailor Member Posts: 7,265
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    FWIW (in the oval tube department)

    For what it is worth in the oval flare department, I bought a Rigid ratcheting flare tool over 40 years ago when I first used one. The kind where you can't squash tubing while you flare it because you absolutely can not over tighten the flare handle. It will ratchet when it gets down to the end. Three ratchet clicks and it is a perfect flare. I've since had two more. The new ones go to 3/4" OD.

    Being a plumber in the Northeast, I would occasionally find frozen and expanded soft tube. Or soft tube that had some bend in a critical place. With that rigid flaring tool, you can put the flaring block tube holder around the bad spot and squeeze it back into shape so you can get the nut and block on the tube to make the flare. Most supply houses don't carry them. Mine did but they also carried the cheap Rigid tool. Guys that should know better always bought the cheap ones that didn't last and wore out. I've had then where I couldn't slide the nut back. I slid the block on backwards against the nut and squeezed it with the flare part. It repaired the bad spot so I could slide the nut back.

    If you've never used one, try one. You might like it. They last forever. After 20 years, the ratchet broke on one and rigid fixed it promptly.

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