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when a mini-split defrosts
Tuesday, January 23 2024
This morning I went out to check the flare connection just south the outside unit of the mini-split I'd gotten working last night to see if there was still oil appearing near them. There was, but not much considering it had run all night. More concerning was that I was now also seeing oil near the flare connections on the outdoor unit itself. This really seemed to indicate the presence of a leak. But if there was such a leak, shouldn't there be refrigerant visible or perhaps audible? Also, why would there have been a fair amount of oil initially (as much as a quarter teaspoon) and then almost none?
Late this morning I drove to Uptown Kingston to renew my driver's license, something I have to do every ten years (so I might only have to do it two or three more times before the grim reaper gets me). I was expecting it to be something of an ordeal, especially since I hadn't made an appointment. But everything was super efficient and I got in and out in no more than about eight minutes. The main thing that happened, in addition to me paying a $67 dollar fee and reading a line on an eye chart. It was easy to read with my glasses on, but since I didn't want to have to wear glasses to drive, I read it with them off and it was no problem (though the characters were admittedly blurrier). On the way home I stopped at the Hurley vet to pick up the medication that Neville is supposed to take every day for the rest of his life, and I was astounded that it cost $180. Gretchen later discovered that our vet no longer sells the generic version and they refused to take the prescription back. But she was also able to find an online supplier who sells the generic version at 25% of what the Hurley vet had charged. It's just another reason we kind of hate that place. (But the alternatives aren't so great, for example the elderly vet in Lake Katrine who diagnosed a hot spot on Lester's arm as an aggressive cancer. Our favorite vet at the Hurley office later looked at that arm and prescribed us a temporary steroid and now it is completely healed.)
Back at the house, the new split's refrigerant pipes had produced a tiny bit more oil near the flare fittings. But it was almost as if the leaks, assuming that's what these were, were somehow healing themselves. Since any apertature past a flare fitting would be tiny, perhaps they inevitably clog with microscropic debris.
Meanwhile, the weather went from rain to sleet to a light snow. I thought conditions were nevertheless mild enough for Gretchen to drive the Bolt to Coxsackie for her Tuesday shift educating prisoners about poetry. This ended up being a bit of a mistake, as the snow continued to fall and eventually accumulated about a half inch deep on Dug Hill Road. That might not sound like much, but it's enough to keep a two-wheel-drive vehicle from climbing the steep slope below our house. So I told Gretchen to drive home past the reservoir and down from the north end of Dug Hill Road, avoiding the long steep slope at its southern end.
This evening conditions were cold enough for the new split to have to go into defrost mode at least once. This is when the split briefly heats its outdoor radiator to melt away the condensed ice that lowers its efficiency. This of course temporarily lowers the efficiency of the system and it completely stops working as a heater during this period. It hasn't been clear when exactly our several Mitsubishi mini-splits go into defrost mode, but with this new one, it's clear. While it's doing the defrost, the glowing numerals on its face that give the temperature it is set at change to "dF." And, since I've still yet to fix the ripped insulation on the refrigerant pipes, I could feel what they do during a defrost. Interestingly, during defrost, these pipes all become very cold, meaning (apparently) that the system is temporarily operating in air conditioning mode, taking a little indoor heat and using it to melt away the ice on the coils in the outdoor unit. But unlike air conditioning mode, the system doesn't run the indoor unit's fan, which would speed up the process while also providing a very cold indoor breeze. The fact that the system does this is more reason to fix the insulation on the refrigerant pipes once I'm confident they aren't leaking.
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