When the U.S.P.O. at the Columbia Regional Airport thought they needed to replace their two 50-ton condensing units last fall they called the Air Masters Columbia Branch Office for a quote.
When Bob Wood, the branch manager, arrived there he noticed that the condensing units were only nine years old and that they appeared to be in good physical shape.
Bob asked why they thought they needed to replace the condensing units. They told him it was because they had replaced so many compressors over the past few years that they believed the condensing units were sub-standard and unreliable.
With years of experience Bob knows that compressors don’t fail on their own. He suggested that Air Masters check out the entire system and make recommendations before the U.S.P.O. go through the expense of replacing the condensing units only to find out later that they were not the reason why the compressors were failing after all and they agreed.
An Air Masters technician checked the system from top to bottom. He replaced oversized expansion valves that allowed refrigerant to flood back, installed liquid line solenoid valves to keep refrigerant from migrating into the compressors when they are shut off, installed crankcase heaters to keep the compressor’s oil warm to drive any refrigerant out of it, adjusted the TXV superheat to prevent liquid refrigerant from slugging the compressors and clean the evaporator coils that were plugged with dirt affecting their heat transfer. It took him about two weeks to make all of these corrections to ensure that the systems were at last operating correctly and reliably the way they should.
Air Masters also sent one of their control specialists to make corrections to the old Johnson Control system and the other controls that operated these systems. The systems are now working better than ever with no more compressor failures.
In the end, the U.S.P.O. saved over $50,000 compared to the unnecessary cost of replacing the two condensing units.
