Everything is pre-charged. It’s easy if you’re not an idiot. Hardest part is routing the lines through the house from where you want the head unit. Also, electrical if you aren’t familiar with that. Site your outdoor unit to make that as easy as possible.
But charging it is actually not that difficult or complicated, and I was able to borrow the necessary tools (vacuum pump and refrigerant gauge set) from a brother in law. All you have to do is use a vacuum pump to suck all the air out of the lines. Then wait to ensure it holds a vacuum, so you can be sure there’s no leaks. Then disconnect the vacuum pump and turn the valves to open the system up, letting the refrigerant into the lines and the inside unit.
Those ones are nicer for getting the lineset the actual length you want instead of having to coil up the excess somewhere, if you have or can get hold of the equipment.
Price of vac pumps and gauges is much better than when I bought them to deal with our farm equipment. If your choice was to pay someone or buy the stuff to do it yourself, it’s no question it’s cheaper to do it yourself. Every job I do on a tractor would pay for the tools all over again, every job was $1000 before that.
Where are you buying a 2 stage vac pump for cheaper than having someone else do it? Cheapest I can find a proper vac pump is like $650 and that’s because it’s a cheap model, the guys at the supply house like me, and they haven’t been able to actually move any of that particular stock in 2 years. Add a micron gauge plus manifold and you’re easily in $1000 on tools.
If I was professionally doing a vac and charge on equipment someone already had installed it’d probably cost them like $400-$500 depending on drive time. Thats also assuming the system was leak free and the customer understood that my company wouldn’t give any warranty on equipment we didn’t install. But that’s also commercial refer mechanic pricing so a residential HVAC tech should be even cheaper.
Also I agree on the linesets. I hate seeing the coils of spare lineset. But if I didn’t already have all the tools required to run custom linesets then I’d probably just buy the precharged lines and deal with it vs spending +$1000 on the tools or having them professionally run.
There are, and that’s the way the average joe is supposed to do one of these. Technically speaking you can’t even hook up a refrigerant manifold to a system legally without an EPA 608 cert (assuming you’re in the US). Of course the EPA doesn’t exactly have the funding or support to enforce anything right now. Even if they did, they have far bigger fish to fry than a homeowner doing their own HVAC work.
Of course, if you do want to work with refrigerants more then an EPA 608 cert is prettyeasy to get. It’s a lifetime cert and I was able to get it with a week of self study and an online test. 608 type 2 is what you need for most HVAC but really it’s not that much harder to just get the universal cert.
Most refrigeration components just come with a slight nitrogen charge to keep them dry. If you’re buying a whole condensing unit it’ll often come with a refrigerant charge in the condensing unit. With heatpumps in particular though you can buy lines and components precharged with refrigerant so you can install them without an EPA certification.
Hardest (or at least the most nerve-wracking) part of it was unrolling and placing the long, fragile copper tubes. They have to be handled very carefully because if they bend too sharply or too much, they can kink or crack, and then you need a whole new set of lines.
I’ve considered doing this. How difficult is it for someone with no background in HVAC?
Everything is pre-charged. It’s easy if you’re not an idiot. Hardest part is routing the lines through the house from where you want the head unit. Also, electrical if you aren’t familiar with that. Site your outdoor unit to make that as easy as possible.
Not on this one, lol!
But charging it is actually not that difficult or complicated, and I was able to borrow the necessary tools (vacuum pump and refrigerant gauge set) from a brother in law. All you have to do is use a vacuum pump to suck all the air out of the lines. Then wait to ensure it holds a vacuum, so you can be sure there’s no leaks. Then disconnect the vacuum pump and turn the valves to open the system up, letting the refrigerant into the lines and the inside unit.
Those ones are nicer for getting the lineset the actual length you want instead of having to coil up the excess somewhere, if you have or can get hold of the equipment.
Price of vac pumps and gauges is much better than when I bought them to deal with our farm equipment. If your choice was to pay someone or buy the stuff to do it yourself, it’s no question it’s cheaper to do it yourself. Every job I do on a tractor would pay for the tools all over again, every job was $1000 before that.
Where are you buying a 2 stage vac pump for cheaper than having someone else do it? Cheapest I can find a proper vac pump is like $650 and that’s because it’s a cheap model, the guys at the supply house like me, and they haven’t been able to actually move any of that particular stock in 2 years. Add a micron gauge plus manifold and you’re easily in $1000 on tools.
If I was professionally doing a vac and charge on equipment someone already had installed it’d probably cost them like $400-$500 depending on drive time. Thats also assuming the system was leak free and the customer understood that my company wouldn’t give any warranty on equipment we didn’t install. But that’s also commercial refer mechanic pricing so a residential HVAC tech should be even cheaper.
Also I agree on the linesets. I hate seeing the coils of spare lineset. But if I didn’t already have all the tools required to run custom linesets then I’d probably just buy the precharged lines and deal with it vs spending +$1000 on the tools or having them professionally run.
That’s pre-charged bud. Otherwise there wouldn’t be refrigerant included
Oh, I thought there were ones with pre-charged lines and everything, where you could just hook it up and go.
There are, and that’s the way the average joe is supposed to do one of these. Technically speaking you can’t even hook up a refrigerant manifold to a system legally without an EPA 608 cert (assuming you’re in the US). Of course the EPA doesn’t exactly have the funding or support to enforce anything right now. Even if they did, they have far bigger fish to fry than a homeowner doing their own HVAC work.
Of course, if you do want to work with refrigerants more then an EPA 608 cert is prettyeasy to get. It’s a lifetime cert and I was able to get it with a week of self study and an online test. 608 type 2 is what you need for most HVAC but really it’s not that much harder to just get the universal cert.
Some come with lines that are vacuumed or something out of the box. Aren’t most compressors pre charged?
Most refrigeration components just come with a slight nitrogen charge to keep them dry. If you’re buying a whole condensing unit it’ll often come with a refrigerant charge in the condensing unit. With heatpumps in particular though you can buy lines and components precharged with refrigerant so you can install them without an EPA certification.
I have no background in HVAC, and I did it.
This youtube video was a great resource.
Hardest (or at least the most nerve-wracking) part of it was unrolling and placing the long, fragile copper tubes. They have to be handled very carefully because if they bend too sharply or too much, they can kink or crack, and then you need a whole new set of lines.