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This morniing when cleaning the heating and cooling coils in my furnace that is connected to a heat pump, I noticed a very small amount of oil in the condensate pan.. The oil appears to be coming from the fitting circled in red on the attached photo.. I tightened the fitting but has anything but oil leaked out? The furnace is slow to heat but when in the heat mode, the top of the evaporator is hot, the middle pipes are warm and the bottom ones are cold as shown in the photo.. The maximum heat coming out of the vents (without electric aux heat on) is about 77 degrees.. IS IT TIME FOR A SERVICE CALL AND RECHARGE? The system is about 9 years old... Will any damage result if run the way it is for 2 weeks or so?
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The oil is from the unit and is a sign that there is a leak in the system and from what you say the systen is probably under-charged now. Depending on how much oil was lost and refregeriant will determine if you will have any damage to the unit from running it. As the freon moves thru the unit it carries the oil with it back to the compressor to keep it lubricated, if too much refregerant is lost the oil will not return to the compressor and damage will occur. -
Thanks for reply ... Update..
As you said, the system was low on refrigerant and as I previously assumed, and was leaking from the fitting that I tightened.. As luck would have it, a friend of mine's son works in A/C and stopped by to help out.. He did something with the compressor, then removed the fitting and re-tightened it with a blue lock seal compound..then recharged the system with 6 lbs of refrigerant.. tested for leaks and now it works as it did when new.. I have to pay for the refrigerent as it wasn't his to give away, but the labor was free so to speak.. Several cold brews after finishing and promise of several pkgs of my smoked salmon sealed the deal.Comment
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that fitting you got circled is the manifold distributor. it functions like a thermal expansion valve only there's no valve inside. the gaseous freon goes into this fitting and there is a pressure drop across the orifice. the evaporator normally in cool mode would get icy cold but because you are in heat mode the evaporator now becomes a heat radiator. [exchanger] radiating warm [hot] air into the duct system.Comment
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