TIL the old guy at Bert's Appliance in Dayton told me to stop guessing on sealed systems, and I owe him a coffee
Five years back I was swapping compressors on fridges by feel, just charging till the lines felt cold enough and calling it done. Bert, who ran a shop on Third Street in Dayton for 30 years before he retired, watched me do one and said flat out, "You're guessing with somebody's groceries, kid." I ignored him for two years because a scale and a micron gauge felt like extra steps. Then last spring I lost 11 pounds of R-134a on three callbacks in one week, all units I'd charged by feel. Bought a $120 digital scale and a $90 vacuum gauge the next day, and my callback rate on sealed system work dropped from about 1 in 4 down to almost nothing. Funny how the $210 in tools paid for itself in two weeks. Any of you still charging by pressure and line temp, or did everybody else already get this lesson beat into them?