Luxaire unit poor cooling

[flatrate]

I have Luxaire heat pumps for the first and second stories of my house. The air handler for the first story is located in the basement and the air handler is located in the unfinished attic. Both units are 4 years old, being installed at the same time. About a year and a half ago, the compressor for the upstairs unit quit working. It was under warranty and a new one installed. Things were working fine until October of last year when the heat was turned on and it went into emergency heat mode. A visit from the repairman yeilded that it was low on gas.
Now it (upstairs unit) is giving me problems once more... I live on the East coast where we are experiencing a heat wave and the unit is not cooling suffeciently. The upstairs temp is 79 degrees. A service call to the repairman yesterday was useless. We measured the intake temp at 79 and the output temp at 75 with the attic temp where the unit sits was 95. He checked the pressures and said they were good. He even checked the pressures on the other working unit to show me that there were no differences. He removed our "allergen" filter and told me not to use it since it restricts airflow and that could have caused the coils to freeze up. He suggested for me to turn the unit off and just let the fan run for a few hours so if the coils were frozen it would allow the to de-thaw. I did this then turned the unit back on and noticed a cooler output of 62 with the input air at 73. By this time it was - PM and the outside temp had reduced drastically. It cooled all night without any problems, however this morning at - AM, the upstairs temp was rising. I did notice that the suction line was only cool to the touch (actually 83 degrees) and no condensation was present. When I compared the suction line to the other unit, the diference was night and day... The other suction line was dripping with sweat and was a cool 52 degrees.
Any help you can give, so I can point the repairman in the right direction, would be greatly appreciated!!

[nomadpeo]

while i appreciate you wanting to get the facts straight, if you have to point the service man in the right direction, you really need to call someone else. it sounds like there may be a freon level issue, but that needs to be determined by someone with proper instrumentation and the will to help you in more ways than emptying your wallet. a low freon condition can be easily detected, but the leak needs to be detected also. good luck.

[flatrate]

Unfortunately, the repairman is the only game in town as well as the installer of the unit. The next closest repairman is 45 miles away and charges mileage...

[paul292]

unit may be low on charge as well as it may have dirty condenser coil , what you can do is clean out the outside coil with some domestic cleaner and rinse it with a garden hose

[flatrate]

I will try cleaning the condensor coils and see what happens. The repairman said that the gas charge was good. He determined this by observing the pressures. Is this an accurate way to troubleshoot the gas charge?

[flatrate]

Cleaned coils, they were a little dirty, not much. No improvement.

[heatseeker]

sounds like you have big leak in your system good luck with jo blow repair service.

[flatrate]

Thanks, will let you know...

[nomadpeo]

no sir. reading pressures is useless without some other readings. it needs to be determined what type of metering device your system uses (piston or txv). based upon that information, the temperature of one or both of those lines will need to be compared to one or both of the coil temperatures (converted from the pressures). it sounds like a classic case of low freon, but unless you can get a tech to do the correct testing, you won't know. you may want to reconsider paying the mileage for a better tech to come to your house. make sure he has an electronic leak detector with him.

[heatseeker]

I'll do it if you pay milage from nola. I know I just love being a smart