RDM

Mappy - a 2014 unit is still considered new, so you should not be having leaking coil issues. Was the ice on the line outside the house near the compressor? (the compressor section is the large boxy looking component outside the house with a large fan on it that comes on with the AC). If there's ice on one of the freon lines outside the house, that's not a good sign. It means the evaporation point of the freon has shifted from the evaporation coil inside the air handler (where you want it to be) to a point down the low pressure line. Was the ice present on that line before the technician added freon the other day? If not, and the ice only developed after he added freon to the system he may have over charged the system. Is there any ice on the freon lines where they exit from the air handler? Any sign of ice on the air handler itself? If so, the coil may be frozen with ice. Check the condensate drain inside the air handler (in the basement?). If the condensate drain clogs up, the water fills the condensate tray under the coil until the water touches the coil. Once the water level gets to the coil, the condensate quickly turns to ice and the ice level migrates up the coil until the entire coil and condensate tray is one solid block of ice. This can happen fairly quickly with a clogged drain. If there's no air flow from the registers around the house, that's because no air can get through the evaporator coil due to the ice. If the condensate drain is clogged, the technician should have zeroed in on this during the inspection. Was there any water laying on the floor in the area around the air handler? If so, that was water that overflowed the condensate drain and/or ice that thawed from the coil. Be careful, with an electrically charged air handler, water laying around is a potential shock risk. With the clogged drain there's no place for the water to escape. Clogged condensate drains happen rather frequently. On houses with 2 or more HVAC zones, there's often an air handler in the attic. These air handlers are installed on top of a large tray that is used to catch overflow condensate when the drain clogs. There's a float switch in the tray that shuts off the air handler to prevent the overflow tray from filling up and running over, which would damage drywall in the ceiling etc. I only raise this because I'm not sure where your HVAC unit inside the house is located. If the condensate drain is clogged, you may be able to fix it yourself. Turn off the AC at the breaker panel. There will be two breakers - one for the outside AC compressor and a separate breaker for the air handler. Open the side access panel/s to air handler near where the two freon lines go in and out of the air handler. If the coil is iced up, that should be easily noticed. Need to let the ice thaw in order to find the drain in the condensate tray and unclog it. The ice could go down the condensate drain hose too, which can take a while to thaw. Look for a piece of 3/4 or 1" diameter PVC pipe exiting the air handler IVO the two freon lines. This is your condensate drain. It likely runs to a drain in the floor nearby or to a small pump that pumps the condensate water to a drain someplace else. If there is a drain in the floor, see if there's water coming out. If there's a small pump, check to see if it is working properly (just pour some water in it - the condensate pumps are auto on/off). Hope this helps too.

Picked up a quick .91" over the last 30 mins. Was a torrent for about 20 mins.

That's hilarious. My parents bought our "Shove-It" in Nov 75 just after they went on sale. The 76 model year was the first year of production. Didn't even have AC as an option until later. So our AC was the windows. Fortunately, my dad insisted on getting the "larger" engine - the 1.6L compared to the standard 1.4L, which was an even worse dog to drive. Remember having to carry a baseball bat behind the driver's seat all the way through HS and then part way through college (until I rolled it). The starter had a dead spot and had to routinely open the hood and bang the handle of the bat on the starter to "bump" it through to start it. Suspect there's some other old timers out there that know what I mean by "bumping a starter". I was lucky when I rolled the Chevette - didn't get hurt but totaled the car. Was not sorry to see it go though. The 71 Caprice 2 door hard top my dad picked up as a replacement for $150 ran like a scalded cat, had a front bench and even had working AC. Couldn't put anything in the trunk though because the rear fenders were so rusted out anything in the trunk was likely to fall out.

The Yugo is right down there, but above the infamous Trabant. Will never forget.... I lived in Frankfurt, Germany when the wall came down Oct 1990 reunifying East and West Germany. Fkt was only about 80 miles from the former border. So as soon as the border opened the former East Germans flooded the shopping centers in the West. The Zeil in Fkt was and remains one of the most popular shopping spots in Germany. Was driving home from work at the height of the onslaught that Winter behind a Trabant packed with way too many people teeming with all their newly purchased western goods. It was cold, the windows were all steamed over as the driver was alternating trying to peer through a small splotch of transparent glass in the windshield and sticking his head out the drivers door open window to see where the heck he was going (that's how I could see how packed it was inside as all the other windows were completely opaque with condensation). The occupants were laughing and screaming and carrying on like it was Mardi Gras. On the rear bumper of the Trabi (nickname for the Trabants) was the best bumper sticker in the history of bumper stickers. It read, in English, "My Other Car is a Trabant Also". The scene was so comical I about crashed my Honda Civic. Normally, you expect a bumper sticker that's bragging about the "other car" to reference the Ferrari, Benz or Rolls in the garage at home. Noooooo - this guy was so "proud" of his Trabi he wanted everyone to know he had another one and was broadcasting the same in English! At the next traffic light I rolled down the window on my Civic and gave them a "Herzliche Wellkommen Zuruck" (A heartfelt welcome back) and the hoard in the Trabi just laughed even louder and kept carrying on. The light turned green and in a big cloud of blue smoke they trod forward (many had 2 cycle engines and burning a lot of oil was the norm). My comparison, the Yugo's were 4 cycle and very modern by comparison (relatively speaking). They resembled the Chevette in design and proportions.

Now we're talking!!! Sweeeeeet!!!

OMG - what memories. The Pacer was right up there with the Matador. Our next door neighbor growing up in Ohio had a Pacer - for about a year. He gave away to avoid the ridicule he received when he drove it. Passenger's side door was 4" longer than the driver's door to make it easier to get in the back. The Pacer was the same era as our Chevy Chevette, which I learned to drive in. What a POS that was, until I rolled it late one night... That took care of that. The only thing good about the Chevette was that it wasn't my dad's red and white 65 Rambler with 3 on the tree. My 3 older siblings all learned to drive in the Rambler. Yet, somehow they all accused me of getting off easy because the Chevette was an automatic!!! yippie??? It had a 2 speed Powerglide tranny coupled to the infamous 1.6 liter Iron Duke 4. It could not get out of it's own way if it fell off a cliff, even with a 4.10 rear end. That was life in the late 70's post Arab Oil Embargo...

Oh crud. Sorry to hear that. That lends to a lot of questions. Happy to offer a few more thoughts and can follow up offline if you ard/or Mr. Mappy want. Know a fair bit about AC units having done a fair bit of troubleshooting while living overseas in some harsh environments, and worked on our own here in NOVA too and saved a lot in the process. The mention of a bad coil points to a fairly old unit. Normally coils are either air tight, or not. If there is any leak in the system at all, with the pressures involved the freon will quickly leak out and the low pressure switch will turn off the compressor to keep it from burning up. The compressor is big bucks if it dies and is typically not repairable - they can only be replaced. There's two coils in an AC system - the evaporator coil (the one inside your house that gets cold) and the condenser coil (outside with the compressor, which gets hot). Which coil was quoted as being bad? Replacing the coil inside can be a major pain depending on the configuration of the air handler and the design of your system. Assume he used a sniffer to detect the leak? A freon sniffer is very sensitive and a good one can pinpoint the leak's exact location. Coils typically don't leak except after extreme age or if a unit is moved in such a way that stress is applied to the line over time. With a bad coil, and if the unit is circa 15 years old or older, and if the bad coil is the condenser coil, it may be more reliable and in the end cheaper to just replace the outside unit. Older units use R-22 freon, which is outrageously expensive as mentioned before. New units use R-410a, which is a fraction of the cost of R-22 (R-22 is 4-5X the cost of 410a). Plus, newer AC units have a much higher Seer rating - the higher the Seer number the better with the max being in the low 20's. By "better" we mean they are more efficient and draw less electricity and save money - perhaps a lot if the current AC unit is 20 years old or older. The difference in operating cost of a AC unit rated with a Seer of 15 verses a Seer of 20 is substantial (there's various charts you can lookup online). The newer AC technologies include variable speed compressors and larger condenser coils when allows lower fan speeds on the compressor unit outside with much less noise. We have 3 zones in our house and just installed a new outdoor unit a year ago. The difference in the lower noise when the two outdoor units (old and new) are running side by side is amazing. One older unit is circa 2005 technology, which is not THAT old - but the difference in technology is obvious. Our electric bill went down substantially with the installation of the newer more efficient unit, even though it has a higher cooling capacity. Lastly, if the solution is to replace the AC, suggest getting multiple estimates. When our until died last year, we got 3 estimates. One from the company that normally did our maintenance, and two from other reputable companies. Two of the 3 were comparable in prices (within 10% of each other) and the 3rd was more than 2x the other two. The company we went with was able to start immediately and provided references to back their work, who I called. Could not have been happier with the work they did end to end. The 3rd company that was 2X the other two readily acknowledged he was expensive and didn't seem to care that he was SO expensive compared to the others. He even told me that even at his price he had more work than he could handle. Good luck.

Hummm - Interesting. If enough freon (R-22 or R-410) leaked out that it prompted the low pressure switch to shut off the compressor, then they likely had to pull a vacuum, evacuate the system and completely recharge it. If that's the case, you got off cheap for $300. The cost of R-22 is outrageous these days. Either way, glad to hear they got you back online.

The other thing that goes with some frequency is the starter relay. Have an extra of those on hand too. It's about the same price as the start capacitor. Of course when our AC went kapooey back in July, it was not the capacitor. Being the last afternoon before the July 4th long weekend everyone was closed. We were fortunate to get an HVAC Company to respond and were happy to pay the $200 for the call. Murphy never strikes when it is convenient.

Sorry to hear about your AC. Hope the HVAC guy can do the needy. FWIW, in most cases the issue with AC failures is a bad start capacitor on the outside compressor unit. The start capacitor is normally a round or oblong silver thing about 5 inches long with terminals on one end. You can get one at Grainger or online (Amazon or Ebay) for about $20-$30. Substantial savings over the HVAC guy. Need to know the rating requirements, which is stamped on the outside of the capacitor. Easy way to tell if the capacitor is fried is to look at the top end where the terminals are. If there's a bulge on the end, and/or signs of any liquid on the outside the capacitor case, it's bad. Likewise, if you put a voltmeter on the capacitor terminals and get an open reading, it's bad. It is a 5 min job to swap out the capacitors, but make sure you electrically disconnect the main electric service to the AC unit before opening the case. It is 240VAC, which is unforgiving. I normally keep an extra capacitor on hand for emergencies. Didn't have one on hand when our AC went out on the afternoon of 03 July just before the long weekend. Got ahold of someone who responded in an hour - to the tune of $200+. Ouch. Hope your fix today easier on the wallet.

Lends to the old saying... "Lead, follow, or get out of the way. But first and foremost do no harm". He's really stepping in it with the approach with the potential to not only not help, but to further the chaos and mayhem, which does not good for anyone.

Indeed - it was amazing. The complete devastation was unimaginable. One of several events that kick-started my interest in this obsession we all call weather. The tornado just missed a hospital in downtown, Xenia, which would have made the death toll much higher. What is also surreal is the green Buick Electra 225 in the picture on the Capital Weather Gang photo... We had the same car at the time and drove it through Xenia after the tornado.

Yes - I've only seen one live tornado in my life - in Kansas in the early 70's. However, as a teenager I will never forget seeing the aftermath of the Xenia F5 that obliterated downtown Xenia, Ohio in 1974. https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/04/03/xenia-ohio-tornado-f-year-anniversary/ You can still see parts of the path plowed through the center of downtown Xenia 46 years later. Our local fire department responded with mutual aid from 30 miles away. Our dad drove us through the aftermath 4 days afterwards. Only way we got past the National Guard was because he wore is Fire Dept turn out gear. Will never forget the devastation of seeing houses with a totally clean slab where even the toilet had been ripped from the foundation. Seen a lot of weather around the world and that is near the top of unforgettable experiences.

Had a new cell popup just W of Oakton/Vienna over the last 15 mins. Picked up .34" in about 8 mins. Tapering off now... Impressive how quickly things are firing up still, although it was still relatively warm for this hour. NWS returns showing what appears to be a new line forming out near I-81

Good to have you back PSU. Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

Wow - 11+ hours without a comment in Banter? Is everyone hung over from too many IPAs?

Yea - we had an old Craftsman push mower for 30+ years back home. Dad bought it in the late 60's. Was a plain-Jane model with 21" cut and automatic push (that being me!). Had a cast aluminum deck so it was very light and easy to push. We changed the oil every few years and it never missed a beat until long after I moved away. It was pre-safety BS too - no blade interlock or any of the other stuff that is just more things to break. All the junk on mowers these days is just more stuff to wear out. I still have my two Gravely walk behind mowers too - one is a 1962 and the other a 1969. Don't make them like that anymore too. No safety stuff other than the owner's manual between the operator's ears. I still use them on occasion for nostalgic reminiscing. The triple gang reel mower attachment provides a 75" width of cut, and endless gawks from passerby's. That said, they can't compete with my Kubota BX - no cup holder on the walk behinds. (profile pic shows the winter setup).

Happy Birthday youngster, and many more!

Cool - keep it! That $800 bucks will go far compared to payments on another truck. That's where I'm at too. Costs almost nothing but to drive it. Replaced both tie rod ends and the idler arm on mine a long time ago. However, all the bushings are still original and the shocks too, although as a group they are shot. Been contemplating having all bushings replaced with urethane, replacing the shocks and the brake lines too. Even if it costs a few grand, still a lot cheaper than payments. Plus, I'll be paying for my wife's vehicle for a couple more years - the 7th of 7 that I've owned. Bought her a one year old SUV 15 months ago. Since then it's been driven 62 miles...

Yup - agree. Something 2-3 years old is still barely broken in. With the rapid depreciation of new vehicles these days it's hard to justify buying something new. I'm nearly 60 and have only owned 7 vehicles in my entire life. Still own 5 of the 7 now. Oldest is my 91 Chevy Silverado I purchased new in July 91 for $17K loaded. Only reason I purchased new one then was A.) couldn't find any used worth buying and B.) knew I was going to keep it a long time. Didn't think I'd still have it 29 years later. It has no rust, 185k on the odo and the only thing major I've done is rebuild the tranny and replace the intake manifold gasket. Needs some new seals and a gasket here and there, but overall is in good shape. Would love to have a newer truck, but the sedimental attachment is too strong to part ways with the one I have now.

Looks scrumptious Mrs. J. My wife is Asian-born and makes all kinds of curry. She has curry from Japan, Thailand and India. It's so darn good I always overindulge. What you have there looks like some of the curry my cook in India used to make. He had about 20 kinds of curry powder in my kitchen. Ranged from medium to beyond hot. He used to get a read on how I was feeling before cooking to get the spicy right. India has the best carrots in the world too (they are red, not orange), which go great with all curry. Same thing when we lived in Thailand. Our cook had all kinds of curry powder. They have various kinds of green, red, yellow, brown and orange curry - and some of it will light you on fire. What you have there in the picture just looks fantastic.

That's sad Mappy. So close, but so far away. Looked at the fiber coverage map and there's a sharp cutoff up towards the M-D IVO Parr's Ridge. Similar situation my brother had near my home in semi-rural Ohio just north of Dayton. He lives just outside ATT DSL coverage (less than a mile). Was on DISH for years with very slow data rates. With no sign of fiber coming anytime soon folks in his area generated a unified campaign and lobbied for better service. After a couple years ATT deployed a cellular upgrade that now provides the option to go with a fixed cellular AP option. Provides Mbps speeds to fixed APs which is light years ahead of what he had with DISH. Those fixed cellular options for semi-HSI can be setup fairly quickly if pushed. Surprised MD doesn't push for the same in under served areas. Not sure we could ever live without fiber again. Just checked our FIOS speed and we're at 82/79Mbps (down/up).

Oh my, really? One would have thought the school districts would have raised this up the chain. With a coordinated response the technology exists to tactically establish hotspots and the associated linkages to major trunks quickly. The large providers and elements of the USG have those capabilities. Hopefully this will be part of the lessons learned that are documented and improved upon for the next time. (perhaps wishful thinking on the latter) Didn't realize parts of BaltCo are not yet connected. The Dulles Corridor is singularly THE most connected data spot on Earth, yet our fellow citizens so close by have no Internet at all? Sad.

Hey - hat head hurts too! In 9th grade two of us needed the 1 XL helmet in the inventory. (my hat size is around 9.5) We flipped for it and I lost. (no joking, that's how we decided). Had to wear a mere large that crushed my skull when I pulled it down to normal position. Couldn't stand it more than a couple mins. Most of the time the bottom of the face mask was around my nose. It looked every bit as goofy as it sounds. Never been able to wear normal baseball hats. Looks like a beanie cap up top.

Nice job on the deck. Just a thought... Our deck is about 900 sq feet and the annual power washing is quite a chore even with a 3000 psi gas powered pressure washer with extension hose. For years I just used a wand with adjustable nozzle. Slow and tedious at best and when adjusted to a fan spray pattern the pressure is not equal throughout the pattern. The result is stripes on the deck boards that look fugly. Bought a power broom attachment and tried that, but the 3 nozzles dilute the pressure just a bit too much. (looks like this - https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200747603_200747603 ) Because of the reduced pressure on each nozzle, ended up having to slow down and/or do repeated passes to get the boards clean, which takes too much time. Three years ago we bought the ideal power washer accessory everyone with a deck should have. Is called a Rotating Surface Cleaner attachment. There's various sizes and designs. Ours looks something like this - https://www.homedepot.com/p/MTD-Genuine-Factory-Parts-15-in-4200-PSI-MAX-Quick-Connect-Rotating-Surface-Cleaner-for-Gas-Pressure-Washers-490-245-V003/310449923 It really works well. With two nozzles that rotate around inside the housing, the pressure is diluted, but not too much like with the power broom. The nozzles rotate around very fast under the housing and really do a great job. It cuts down the time needed to do our deck boards by at least half. Still have to use the adjustable wand on the railings, which is tedious at best. If you and/or anyone else does not have a rotating surface cleaner, highly recommend one. They are well worth the expense in saved time and energy. Much easier to move around than a power wand because it rests directly on the boards. The consistent distance between the nozzles and the deck boards also provides much more consistent results than a wand. Good luck.