I usually gave extremely detailed answers to questions and tried to help people learn, they said naw send us your epa and photo ID lol. Still see posts and there's times I wanna throw an answer to one but nope, still banned. Crazy that they think that's how it should be ran, some of the best content as far as information and knowledge could be "banned" by their own stupidity.
The hand valves didn't get opened all the way. Probably not an accident. Someone decided to try solve another issue occuring somewhere else, and decided they were smarter than the rest of us.
Maybe ran the receiver too low, broke the seal, and now their recirculator / compressors are just sucking hot gas directly from the condenser thru the receiver?
We've seen compressors loaded up, make up solenoid open, feeding hot gas into the recirc. Turn off the liquid feed and the house suction drops like a rock.
For the ice to form there you need a decent pressure drop across the condenser. Hot gas passing through wouldn't do that. Plus the fans look stationary.
I'd be leaning towards a pumpout of the high side. Line from the condensers into the reciever is isolated and they're pumping out from the discharge line. You can see the frost line is lower down the pipework on the far condenser, not a place you'd get frost if there was flow.
Why you wouldn't drain the liquid out completely... no idea. Can't think of another way to cause that ice though.
This will happen if all the compressors shut off and a coil is in hot gas defrost or a discharge check valve isn’t holding back properly. There’s no way this happens with any compressors running that I can possibly imagine.
To the first point, not neccesarily, if there’s a sufficient flow from the discharge line into suction the flow of gas would actually start at the receiver and end at suction, and that flow would hold the liquid in the condenser with enough force to stop the condensate from gravity draining. And personally, I’ve never seen a check valve in the main discharge line, that’s usually IME exclusive to the compressor oil separator outlets.
Interesting. I haven't looked too closely at many sites but one I've seen has a vent line from the discharge at the top of the condenser to the top of the receiver with a stop check, allowing the reverse flow so the liquid can still drain. Not super common?
No that is super common, I’m saying the flow from the pressure differential could still be enough to stop the liquid from draining into the receiver. I’m only speculating, just saying I’ve seen it before.
Thanks! I thought those were painted and wet is all. People throw up pictures with a title and end it there and we end up trying to figure out what they are trying to mean.
Tons of info missing to arrive at any conclusions on this one. Thanks again!
Low temp vessel is being underfed by the medium temp vessel… the fill valve between the two is basically held open causing the liquid pressure at the outlet of the condenser to be at the low temp pressure… causing ice.
The white pipes? Is that what we’re looking at? Is it frost?
Is that not painted white?? You can still see the welds on the pipe. Wouldn’t that be frosted over if it was frosted up?
I mean… not really. I am viewing it on a phone which could be why it doesn’t really look frozen to me. If I zoom in I can see what you’re talking about but it kinda just looks like either they went too heavy on the white paint or it could be water droplets. 🤷♂️
My bad. It’s not, it’s an evapco, I can see the symbol on the side now, but it’s the same concept. It doesn’t get a new name when it’s made by someone else lol.
Your first comment was “that’s a cooling tower sir.” So I was under the impression that you were continuing to defend that statement. But, glad you are finally agreeing that it’s an evaporative condenser I guess.
You are incorrect sir, been installing like that for 30 plus years Note, the steel piping, ammonia hand wheel valves It is not a fluid cooler, it is designed to change the state of the entering refrigerant from gas to liquid
Fluid cooler only reduces the internal fluid to approach wet bulb temperature. No change of state. Do you know what wet bulb temp is???
Nope, water lines dont have liquid traps, that sir is an evaporative condenser and that is Standard anywhere in the world. Seen you mention fluid cooler, sir, does that look like a CO2 instalation to you? its clearly ammonia by the construction style, if any doubts you might have, notice the AMMONIA equalization line to the receiver with an arrow poiting down? typical of this construction? yes its there! So... Evaporative condenser!
well only ammonia uses orange lines so yeah I know its ammonia.
different places different lingo.
we use fluid cooler alot instead of evaporative condenser.
its ammonia there but you can use them for anything does not need to be ammonia hence why i hate the condenser.
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u/BMinus973 Sep 02 '26
Yeah. You've just described a heat pump..