How Honest Fix Installs an Outdoor AC or Heat Pump

So it stays level. The gravel base is dug into the ground and gives water somewhere to drain instead of sitting under the pad and heaving it during a freeze. A pad set straight on dirt will eventually tilt, and a tilted pad puts the compressor out of level.

Because a heat pump runs in winter and defrosts, and that meltwater has to drain away. The minimum is a three-inch rise above the pad, and Honest Fix runs six-inch risers. A heat pump set flat sits in its own defrost water, which then refreezes around the base of the coil.

When copper is heated without nitrogen flowing through it, the inside of the pipe scales and oxidizes. That scale does not stay where it forms. It breaks loose and circulates into the compressor and the metering device. Flowing nitrogen through the line while brazing keeps the inside of the copper clean, and it is the single cheapest way to prevent an expensive failure two years out.

After the refrigerant lines are connected, air and moisture have to come out before refrigerant goes in. A vacuum pump pulls the system down, and microns measure how deep that vacuum is. Lower is drier. Honest Fix pulls below 500 microns, then isolates the pump and watches whether the system holds under 700 for no less than seven minutes. Moisture left in a system combines with refrigerant to make acid.

Three vacuum passes instead of one. The system is pulled to 1,500 microns and broken with a small charge of nitrogen, pulled again to 1,000 and broken again, then pulled to 500 and held. Each pass lets the nitrogen pick up moisture that the previous vacuum loosened but could not carry out. Most contractors do this only where the equipment manufacturer requires it. Honest Fix does it on every install, because it takes longer and it produces a genuinely dry system.

Yes. The disconnect is the weatherproof box on the wall beside the unit, and Honest Fix replaces it on every installation rather than reusing the one that came off with the old equipment. Most installs take a plain disconnect. Where the existing wire or breaker is sized wrong for the new unit, a fused disconnect goes in instead, and the fuses face forward so an inspector or a technician can read the size without taking anything apart.

Read this page and go look. You are checking for a pad that is level and squared to the house, a heat pump raised up off the pad, line set that is straight and secured with the wall penetration sealed, and a disconnect that is new rather than the weathered box that was there before. The brazing and the vacuum are the parts you cannot inspect afterward, which is exactly why they are published here. If you would rather have someone look with you, that is what a free exact quote visit is for.