Water Cooled AC?

This mornings inspection included this POS Painted over AC unit, and I could use a little help with.

  1. Do you recognize (by the looks of it) who the manufacturer might have been (all painted over).

  2. You will notice what appears to be either a copper gas, or water line running to it from the side of the house. All I ever see around here are air cooled central air conditioners. Can you please educate me a little as to what this is? Maybe that’s just the condensate line? Usually they are right next to the larger insulated line?

BTW, Surprising enough it cooled the house great, and seemed to be working just fine.

That might be an old Arkla Servel natural gas absorption unit or something similar. The small line might be the gas supply. I’m reaching here and don’t know for sure. Here’s an example of one.

DSC02162.JPG

are you sure thats not the high pressure line? Whats the air handler look like?

It probably is… I just got confused because normally those lines are right strapped together, and run together. That makes the most sense and is the most common in this area.

I would think is the liquid line as well,Probablly A/C guy just did not run it next to suction line,. Fan at condenser unit appears to remove heat.

Carlos Orellana
Houston Texas

It’s not water cooled.

Water cooled AC’s condenser would usually be inside next to the furnace and would not have a cooling fan/coil.

Just a air cooled unit.

Looks like a Carrier unit. They had some paint issues in the late 90’s and some have been painted.

That is just a standard split system the suction line dryer indicates to me that the unit or the compressor has been changed out in the past may have had a leak on one of the lines that was not repairable due to location and was re-routed

That’s a good explanation…