Hot take: That old-timer who told me to stop using refrigerant gauges and just feel the lines was completely wrong

I tried his method on a 2019 Whirlpool fridge in Austin last month and ended up chasing a slow cool issue for 3 days before I finally hooked up gauges and found the low side was 10 psi off, has anyone else had bad luck skipping the tools for 'experience'?

3 comments

3 Comments

parkera222mo ago

That's the thing with the old school methods. It's like how my granny could bake a cake without measuring anything but if I tried the same thing I'd end up with a hockey puck. Refrigerant work isn't just about feel, it's about accurate numbers especially on newer systems with tight tolerances. Seems like every field has that one guy who's been doing it so long he forgets what it was like to learn. And in a hot climate like Austin a 10 psi difference is the whole ball game.

william_henderson2mo ago

Is it possible that some of those old school guys just got lucky with their specific systems and climates and never had to deal with the edge cases? @parkera22 I bet your granny knew exactly how her own oven and ingredients behaved, but she'd probably struggle swapping to a different setup. The same refrigerant readings that work in one part of Austin might be totally off just ten miles up the road.

emery_young132mo agoMost Upvoted

My granny had a fifty year head start on that oven, so that's not exactly fair. Older guys forget that they got that feel through decades of trial and error. Newer systems just don't give you that same margin for mistakes anymore.