HVAC Buddy

Does your air conditioning system have the proper charge? The best way to begin diagnosis and determine the proper refrigerant charge is to use HVAC Buddy, a set of gauges, and a thermometer.

* Diagnosis tab for leaks, overcharge, contaminants, etc.
- Superheat for fixed capillary or Subcool forTXV/EXV systems
- Common refrigerants R-22 (Freon), R-410A (Puron), R-404A, R-134A
- Use Target Superheat and Subcool tables or enter manually
- Fast! Update values realtime with Temp and Pressure sliders
- User friendly with several pages of step by step instructions

if the early outdoor temperature is 75F and you charge the system to a “beer can cold” suction line your system is likely improperly charged. Later in the afternoon high temperatures will increase head pressure and the resulting overcharge means a lower than desired superheat and wasted energy. Not good!

Use HVAC Buddy to enter the type of refrigerant, indoor and outdoor temperatures, and pressures. The math is done for you to display Target, Actual, and Difference. Use the temperature and pressure sliders to see what happens in realtime when these values change. HVAC Buddy contains generic charts for target Superheat and Subcool as well at PT tables for R22, R-410A, R-404A, and R-134A. The data in the PT chart is displayed on the refrigerant selection row and can easily be viewed by moving the pressure slider. Add or recover refrigerant to get the Actual value to within the displayed target Superheat or Subcool range.

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Recent Accolades and Awards
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HVAC Buddy was recently featured by the California Association of HERS Raters and is CalHERS approved!

http://calhers.org/

"Very cool app. I can see California really running with this as we have strict requirements coming Jan 1, 2010 for verification." - John Richau, Executive Director Calhers

"an excellent programme" - Charlie Richards

"The best! Hasnt called in sick or asked for a raise." - John Stapleton

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Notes
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Release 1.1 has been submitted to the appstore September 16, 2009 and should be available within a few weeks. The following are Release 1.1 Features (When it becomes available):

1) Corrects the presentation issue described below as well as correcting typos on the Subcooling tab.

2) Imperial/Metric - View units in Fahrenheit/Celsius or psi/kPa

3) Airflow - Compares a targeted difference across the coil vs. actual. Also called Delta-T or Target Evaporator Exit Temperature (TEET)

4) Email - Allows you to create default email addresses, subject, and greeting text. These are then incorporated into an email which is generated and includes all the parameters recorded in HVAC Buddy. You can then edit the email and / or add contacts from your contact list. Finally, the email can be sent.

Known Issue with release 1.0:
Does 2+2=5? Decimal values are used internally and rounded off on the screen so the difference may occasionally appear to be "off" by one.