Heat Pump Maintenance Saves this Customer Big Money in Johnson City, TN

An existing customer in Johnson City, TN called us and asked to be put on our HVAC maintenance waiting list. Their heat pump is 8 years old. Upon our initial test in procedure on the heat pump the refrigerant charge was okay, but the inrush amps on the compressor was over the LRA (Locked Rotor Amp) rating. The LRA on this unit was 58.3 amps, but we were drawing 62.1 amps at startup, which exceeds the LRA. The compressor was having a hard time starting up and would have eventually failed to start or locked up.

We tested the dual run capacitor on this 8-year-old heat pump and it tested out of range. It is a 40+5 440VAC capacitor, yet it tested at 17.4 MFD on the HERM side of the capacitor. We grabbed a USA made Mars capacitor off the van and replaced the Chinese made OEM capacitor with a quality made USA component. After thoroughly checking the other components, we cleaned and waxed the outdoor unit.

We pulled a vacuum on the drain line where we found it was holding lots of dirty water (partially clogged) from the indoor drain line and it was filled with zoogleal. We went into the attic and thoroughly cleaned the indoor unit and checked it out. We snaked the p-trap and flushed the drain line with 1 gallon of foaming drain cleaner followed by 2 gallons of enzyme treated water to make sure that the zoogleal was cleaned from the drain line and that it was flowing free. Aluminum indoor coils are bad about clogging the drain lines up with zoogleal on these newer units because there isn’t any anti-microbial copper on the coils anymore, which used to help keep the drain lines cleaner on older systems for longer.

After everything was cleaned up, we hooked our probes to the system again and fired up the unit in cooling mode for our test out procedure. Upon firing the system up we registered a much lower inrush amp draw on the compressor of 22.4 amps, since we replaced the failing Chinese OEM capacitor with an American made Mars capacitor. We saved the customer 39.7 amps at startup, we saved the compressor from failing in the very near future, and saved the customer big money on a potential compressor replacement.

If you need a thorough HVAC maintenance, you value quality workmanship and live within our service area of Northeast Tennessee, please feel free to contact Magnolia Services based out of Johnson City, TN. We would be happy to show you what a real HVAC maintenance should look like. Stay safe and best wishes.

Location: Johnson City, TN