Derek Cole and HVAC expert William Skipper explain what a grounded compressor means, why R-22 refrigerant leaks matter under EPA rules, and the red-tag law that lets technicians shut off furnaces with cracked heat exchangers to prevent carbon-monoxide hazards.
Hey, on this episode I talk about the red tag law. Is refrigerant leaking a problem? And what does it mean when my compressor is grounded? You ask your comfort and energy questions and they get answered. This is the Ask Derrick Cole Show. Hey, this is Derrick Cole. Welcome to episode 59 of the Ask Derrick Cole Show, answering your home and energy questions. And thankfully this morning we had frost on the ground. I was very excited. Might even did a little jig. I was going to the car. No one got it on camera, so it was good though. You should have seen it.
It was good.
We have William Skipper here. Can you like pan and a light? Uh, so, um, yeah, Thanksgiving coming up, but let's get into the program.
What does it mean when my compressor is grounded?
Her compressor has failed. Um, now, William, what does technically grounded mean?
It means it's grounded to the side of the cabinet. Inside, your electrical component is grounded. Your circuitry, your windings are grounded to the casing or to the internal part.
That's your technical definition, but all you really need to know is the fact that it's not working. It needs to be fixed, replaced, changed out. Something needs to happen, but the compressor is dead. And if you have a heat pump this time of year, you will still get heat with your strip heat, but we all know from previous episodes that's very expensive. She just hit the camera.
It just wobbled a little bit.
I'm sorry.
Just say it's very expensive again. You can cut it in.
Remix. I'm sorry, we'll keep it. What is this?
It's the thing for my tripod.
Q: How serious is a refrigerant leak? Is it something that needs to be fixed right away or can I keep adding refrigerant?
A: Refrigerant leak is a problem.
Now if it's an R-22 Freon system, you cannot keep adding refrigerant to it.
I think once it gets over 60% capacity or somewhere in that mix, depending on how much is actually in the unit. So if it holds 6, 8 pounds of refrigerant. Once you get to a certain level of that refrigerant, you're not supposed to add any additional refrigerant because as it leaks out, it is an HCFC, so it does destroy the ozone layer. It's not environmentally friendly, so there are laws by the EPA against doing things like that. So And once you get over 2 pounds, we do a leak service to fix the leak and find the leak and fix it. That way we don't keep adding refrigerant to it, which is not only against the law, but you're also affecting the environment.
What is the red tag law and why does it mean you can turn off my unit?
When you have a safety hazard like a heat exchanger that is cracked, that could be letting carbon monoxide into the home, we have the right to shut the unit off. Not only do we shut the unit off, but we actually kill the gas to it or turn the gas off to it and actually stop it from being able to operate on the heating side. So we have the right to do that in the state. And I think I've been told there's an international law So that's good if we go to like Puerto Rico, we can also do it there.
I volunteer.
But no, it's really good about the safety. Life safety. Yeah, carbon monoxide is nothing to play around with. It's very— you can't see it, you can't smell it, it just has an effect on you. So maybe it's not coming into the living space, but it can come into the living space. So if you have a crack in your Combustion, a crack in the heat exchanger where there's fire, we can shut that down. And it's really about your safety and the safety of you and your family because you don't know when it's going to come in, how much is going to come in. I mean, you can't control all those factors. What you can control is the fact that yes, you have a crack, so now this bad odor or this bad gas is getting out and can come into the living space. So we have to turn it off.
And I don't know what you said, but something sounded like Siri and she came on.
Hey Siri!
That's not—
I'm sitting here and all of a sudden there's—
Didn't do it that time. All right, so that was a short one. Episode 59 of the Ask Derek Corbett Show. I think we are going to bang out 60 tomorrow.— with this special guest. Thanksgiving special. Yes, a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. Tomorrow we will have a special guest, so we'll see you tomorrow. Make sure you hashtag all your home energy heating and air questions, hashtag #AskDerekCole, and we'll get them on the show.
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