[TC1474]

The air con in my car has been losing its intensity for about 12 months or so and I have been meaning to get it recharged and back up to its full level of coldness. It still worked but just not as cold as I like it, but then I can't really complain considering it was pre covid the last time it was done and in reality probably the thick end of 8 years ago.

So yesterday I had a couple of hours to kill, so I got it booked in to have the A/C recharged.

At 3pm today, said garage turned up at home, checked it was all working OK (I never turn it off), turned out I only had about a third of the required refrigerant, , and 30 minutes later I had a fully functioning icy cold air conditioning system again.

Such bliss, it is proper ice cold.

Best £80 I have spent in a long time.

[Drivingforfun]

Definitely worth doing just for the comfort, if you consider what people pay for leather seats or whatever it's a no brainer 👍

It crosses my mind to buy a home air conditioner during winter, as right now they'll be double price. I wonder if that works with getting your car regassed? If you got it done in winter would it be cheaper? 🤔

[TC1474]

Originally Posted by Drivingforfun

👍

It crosses my mind to buy a home air conditioner during winter, as right now they'll be double price. I wonder if that works with getting your car regassed? If you got it done in winter would it be cheaper? 🤔

In my area there is no difference in price, it is the same all year round.

What is a massive difference is the price charged to do it.

It can range from £70 up to a couple of hundred quid depending on the vehicle.

Friend of mine recently had his done. Because he had the newer model it was £50 more expensive than the previous years model all because of a couple of minor modifications.

[Drivingforfun]

That makes sense, my brother had his done by a friend who was apparently doing him a favour and it was £96. He has a 2005 car but it's a large pickup truck with a big diesel engine. Unless the friend was having him over I assumed it must cost more based on certain attributes of the vehicle

[olduser]

The cost can vary because of different equipment do different jobs.

Re-gassing can be done with a gauge set and a vacume pump - the pump is used to draw out the remaining gas, dry out the aircon, and show there is a leak. If all OK, gas can then be added via the gauge set to the specified pressure.

There are re-gassing machines that have just combined vacuum pump, gauge set, and gas cylinder into one unit but it just does the same as the above.

The more sophisticated (and more expensive) kit, does all of the above + allows a leak testing agent to be add to find the source of leaks, and will also remove the air con oil replacing it with the correct amount of the correct oil.

All air con circuits have a water trap, these should be replaced periodically.
Mixing the refrigerant gas with water vapour reduces it's effectiveness. (does not get as cold)
Any water drops can freeze and block the expansion valve. (system stops working until ice thaws)

Hopefully, the price difference reflects the quality of service.

[Rolebama]

I have been told that using a UV-reactive dye assists in finding leaks, and can be left in the system. This aids in finding leaks in future. A lot of systems, not all, have Schrader valves, so a standard foot pump can be used to pressurise both the high and low pressure sides. There are a number of videos on YouTube pertaining to different models, and you can buy dye and fluid, although I would suggest a Google search for local suppliers. Naturally all can be found on eBay.
Bear in mind there are a lot of safety factors involved if you decide to give it a go..

[olduser]

Originally Posted by Drivingforfun

Definitely worth doing just for the comfort, if you consider what people pay for leather seats or whatever it's a no brainer 👍

It crosses my mind to buy a home air conditioner during winter, as right now they'll be double price. I wonder if that works with getting your car regassed? If you got it done in winter would it be cheaper? 🤔

I suppose, the smart thing would to buy a reversible domestic heat pump, in winter it supplies heat for the radiators, and in summer it supplies cold water to the radiators.
I have been in an experimental/demonstration house but never lived with one.
Basically, in winter it extracts heat from outside, pumps up it's temperature for use in the radiators, (very efficient they were claiming up to 5 Kw heat out for each 1 Kw input).
For summer the flow is reversed, so we collect heat from the radiators to be dispersed outside the house.

With those of us used to engines, more energy out than we put in raises eyebrows but we are used to the laws of thermodynamics - converting heat into power but with heat pumps we are reversing this and converting power into heat, all the losses now become gains.

[Drivingforfun]

I did more physics and mechanical maths rather than practical stuff but energy out and in is all dependent on the boundaries of the supposedly closed system you're looking at

I think what heat pumps do is increase the size of the "system" so it basically sucks lots of heat from a large volume of air (or ground) outside, but uses it in a small area (the inside of your house) so effectively you're cooling down the outside by an insignificant amount, and heating your house

I might be totally off there but that's how I understood it

[NMNeil]

@olduser My home is off grid and we cool and heat the house all year round with three mini split systems, which are just heat pumps as you described. They even sell one that will run directly from the solar panels when it's sunny and from the mains during the night.

[olduser]

Is appropriate to say cool?
No perhaps not it's childish, cancel that.

Being sensible (I try to be sometimes) did you say in another post you had storage batteries?

Are your solar panels old, In the last two or three years I moved from Norfolk (south east) to County Durham (north east) and found lots of houses with solar panels?
I asked my son (he builds and sells solar farm in Australia) if they would be economic being so far north, he said in the last few years panels have improved, now daylight is enough for them to be generating, sun shinning is not required.

Here in the UK, they are starting to use a different refrigerant gas in heat pumps, it enables the pump to produce higher temperatures enabling the system to work on radiator installations designed for gas boilers.
Without this, to convert from gas to heat pump involved changing the whole system radiators and all.

[olduser]

Originally Posted by Drivingforfun

I did more physics and mechanical maths rather than practical stuff but energy out and in is all dependent on the boundaries of the supposedly closed system you're looking at

I think what heat pumps do is increase the size of the "system" so it basically sucks lots of heat from a large volume of air (or ground) outside, but uses it in a small area (the inside of your house) so effectively you're cooling down the outside by an insignificant amount, and heating your house

I might be totally off there but that's how I understood it

Yes and no - the laws of thermodynamics boil down to if you are looking for power from heat then roughly two thirds of the heat input will be rejected, there are ways of improving that but not a lot, in simple terms if we reverse the equation heat from power the loss becomes the output from the system.
That is a very simplified way of looking at it but I think you will get the general idea.

It feels odd because we read and laugh at the many perpetual motion systems that don't work and certainly at room temperature cannot work. (things change a bit when we get to absolute zero or involve superconductors)

[NMNeil]

Originally Posted by olduser

Being sensible (I try to be sometimes) did you say in another post you had storage batteries?
Are your solar panels old, In the last two or three years I moved from Norfolk (south east) to County Durham (north east) and found lots of houses with solar panels?
I asked my son (he builds and sells solar farm in Australia) if they would be economic being so far north, he said in the last few years panels have improved, now daylight is enough for them to be generating, sun shinning is not required..

I honestly have no idea how old my solar panels are as they are used. My last purchase was 12*450watt Canadian Solar, one of the best brands available, and I paid $85 a panel, but with freight shipping it was about $100 a panel in total
Not an advertisement as they are in Arizona but this is where I bought them.
https://www.santansolar.com/product-.../solar-panels/
Sold out almost overnight but even brand new panels are dirt cheap.
I just finished my monthly heat pump maintenance; I cleaned the filters, which is the only maintenance they need, and so far my battery bank is at around 80% of full capacity every morning, so within a few hours of sunrise they are full.