Receiver Points

This is in reference to John Piasecki’s article, “Don’t Let The Receiver Be Your Weakest link,” September 2, and Bryan Wyrick’s response titled “Receiver Location” in Feedback, September 16.

While I certainly agree with the points made in the article and response, there are some other important points that need to be addressed if a receiver is to be used:

1. A receiver should always be located below the condenser outlet.

2. If the outlets of the condenser are horizontal, they should be piped with full-sized ells and the vertical drops should be full size for 2-1/2 feet minimum before any pipe size reduction is made to enter the receiver. No traps rising above the condenser outlet should be piped from the condenser to the receiver.

3. The addition of a subcooler cannot be overemphasized and its location has to be at the receiver outlet, as mentioned in the “Receiver Location” letter.

4. Lately, there has been a lot of effort given to surge-piped receivers. In my opinion, a straight-through receiver with a subcooler is a simpler and more reliable technique than a surge-piped receiver. Using an electrical analogy, a surge-piped receiver can be considered to be a fluid capacitance and a flow-through receiver is analogous to a fluid inductance. An inductance has considerably more forgiveness than a capacitance. This has been borne out in my experience.

Elio Battista, P.E., Refrigeration Engineer, EBthePE, Houston, TX

Sears And Carrier

Carrier says they don’t expect this to take away from any of the traditional dealers. Yet they say they are going to provide “expert” service for the life of the product — essentially excluding the contractor for the life of the product.

Sears states that they want to strengthen their position in the marketplace. I believe the only way to do this is to displace other contractors and competitors. Sears also states their intent to position their HVAC business for dramatic growth in market and revenue, again at the expense of the contractor.

Sears goes on to say that they are very interested in continued development and growth of their technician force and will definitely work with Carrier to recruit and develop the best technicians they can find. I wonder where they will find them? Maybe from us contractors who helped Carrier build their business.

Sears states that they are “very interested in pursing light commercial growth and commercial opportunities, specifically related to the property management industry.”

Look out — here come Sears and Carrier to help your business.

Tom Acquilano, Betlem Service Corp., Rochester, NY

Geothermal Costs

A contractor quoted in the article states that geothermal can cut maintenance costs by two-thirds. How can that be with so many more components involved (pumps, piping for the water, flex hoses to the units from the rigid pipe, etc.)? Please tell me what I’m missing.

Dean Bader, Bismarck, ND

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Publication date: 11/04/2002