Air in the System Is Probably Not Your Problem
Non-condensables are a real fault with a real mechanism, and they get blamed for a great deal they do not cause. A DOE field and laboratory study puts the effect of air alone at quite minor.
Read itMost HVAC writing online is either a sales pitch or a repeat of a number nobody can trace. These posts cite the study, name the authors, and link the document. Where good data doesn't exist, we say so instead of inventing it.
Non-condensables are a real fault with a real mechanism, and they get blamed for a great deal they do not cause. A DOE field and laboratory study puts the effect of air alone at quite minor.
Read itFrequent starts are widely blamed for killing compressors. The energy penalty is measurable and modest. The lifetime penalty everyone quotes has never been published at all.
Read itEvery monitoring product implies it makes equipment last longer. We went looking for the study behind that claim. The Department of Energy has listed it as an open research question since 2011, and it is still open.
Read itThree field surveys of failed equipment, one covering roughly 6,000 service records, agree on something counterintuitive: the fault that generates the most service calls is not the fault that ends the machine.
Read itScheduled maintenance is genuinely valuable and we are not arguing against it. But a once-a-year inspection samples a continuous process 0.3 % of the time, and faults do not wait for the appointment.
Read itEvery car sold in the United States since 1996 carries standardised onboard diagnostics. The most expensive appliance in your house has nothing of the kind, and the reason is regulatory history rather than engineering difficulty.
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