Am I being scammed by Air Conditioning repair man?

Question

My central air conditioner was not cooling down fast enough. I live in a dry climate. I assumed it might have been a freon leak. The AC repair man said the freon was at adeqate levels but said my coils needed to be cleaned. He charged me $250 to clean a 3 ton outdoor compressor unit which he did on the spot. After an hour he left. My AC is working even slower now. I thought clearning the coils would improve performance but now its worse. Any ideas or suggestions

Answer 1

Did he clean it with water or an air hose?

Any time you call a repair man out you're asking him to take your hard earned money without giving you anything in return. If you are physically able and can undo some screws yourself, you could have saved yourself $245.00.

First, call him back out and tell him when he arrives that you are going to stand there and watch what he is doing. If he won't do it while you watch then ask him for a full refund because it is now worse than when he 'fixed' it. Take it to your lawyer if you have to. Some times just a call or a letter from a lawyer will do the trick.

DO NOT have anyone else touch it. He can lie about what he did.

If he uses compressed air to clean it he is setting you up for a hole in your coils. It doesn't take anything big to put a hole where you don't want one. He should use water.

If you have to do it yourself, do this.

1. Get as much of the casing off as you can get off to be able to get to all of the coils.

2. Soak them all down with Mean Green. Let it soak in for a few minutes.

3. Spray it all out with hot water until the water runs clean.

4. If you still see some dirt in there repeat steps 1 - 3.

5. Put the unit back together and enjoy the cool.

If this doesn't work, it has to be a freon leak or low freon.

Note: To get hot water out to the A/C, hook it to a laundry sink or the nozzle at the bottom of your water heater.

I hope this helps.

Answer 2

He probably blew all the c**p into the coil. Just put your hand in front of it and feel if there is enough air movement. You must also feel the outgoing and return copper pipe to feel that one is very cold and the other warm. If both are about the same temperature you might have a gas problem. Also if your outgoing pipe is not really cold the gas might be low. Make sure the ducts and fans are clean and there is enough air movement.

Answer 3

HVAC Tech.: You don't say if tech. checked and or cleaned the inside (evaporator) coil and examine the filter.Keeping the WHOLE system clean is the only way to keep it operating like it did when it was new. 99 times out of 100 the inside coil will be the one that causes low performance. People fail to realize how important it is to change the filter on at least a monthly basis. To run the system with no filter is the worst thing to do to it. It is hot hard work to clean the evaporator coil up in an attic, where the temperature can be 135 degrees this time of the year, but that is what they charge you for. Call him back and see that he finishes the job.

Answer 4

Verdugo: What I am thinking is that he probably bended the fins on the coil and that creates the air flow to slow down. What you wanna do is check it yourself and see it for youself and take pictures and ask for your money back... He is not supposed to bend the fins where is creating air restriction. Ofcoarse if this is the case it will be exactly what I would do.

If you are checking the coil your self make sure when you open the panel that you cut the power off to the unit.

Answer 5

call him back ask him did he back flush the coil and did he check the shrader valves sounds like you had a bad shrader valve and he leaked the refridgerant if it need condenser coil cleaned it should work better now but sometimes you have more than one thing wrong so call him back he should warranty his work

Answer 6

Get another ac repair man from a totally different company to inspect it and fix it if he finds anything wrong. Then call the company the other repair man is with and ask to speak to top management, tell them you want your money back, plus what you had to pay to get it fixed right.