York Chiller Service in Tampa Bay

Which York chiller is in your plant

Treat the first job on a York chiller as detective work. Establish which line it is, which controls it carries, what refrigerant is in it, and what has been done to it since it was commissioned. If the paperwork is thin, the nameplate is the starting point, and the model name on it is the key to everything else.

See the air-cooled chillers page on Johnson Controls' website; the entries below are copied from it.

• YLAA: “YORK YLAA Scroll Chiller A flexible chiller providing the right balance for improved performance. 40–230 tons” (source).
• YVAA: “YORK YVAA Air-cooled Variable Speed Drive Screw Chiller Efficiency through advanced heat exchangers and smart controls. 150–575 tons” (source).
• YCIV: “Quantech YCIV Variable Speed Drive Screw Chiller This chiller offers superior control and efficiency, helping to drive down costs. 150–400 tons” (source).
• YVFA: “YORK YVFA Free Cooling VSD Screw Chiller A packaged design that's simple to operate and minimizes costs. 115–500 tons Air-to-liquid free cooling coils Intelligent controls to optimize energy” (source).

See the water-cooled chillers page on the same website; the entries below are copied from it.

• YK: “YORK SMART READY YK Centrifugal Chiller Engineered to deliver real-world performance while offering exclusive benefits. 250–3,000 tons cooling capacity” (source).
• YZ: “YORK SMART READY YZ Magnetic Bearing Centrifugal Chiller A revolutionary advancement challenging everything about conventional chiller design. 150–2,020 tons cooling capacity” (source).
• YMC2: “YORK SMART READY YMC2 Centrifugal Magnetic Drive Chiller State-of-the-art design and active magnetic-bearing technology for an advanced solution. 165-1,000 tons cooling capacity” (source).
• YD: “YORK YD Dual Centrifugal Chiller Two compressors operating in parallel and features the most compact configuration in its class. 1,500-6,000 tons cooling capacity” (source).

Where a plant has several York lines in it, ask for each machine to be scoped on its own.

Controls on York machines

See Johnson Controls' operations and maintenance services page for the statements below.

• Connected equipment: “Connected chillers and other HVAC assets use sensors to gather and analyze equipment data, fueling advanced health and performance diagnostics, identifying optimal timing for maintenance and upgrades” (source).
• Remote monitoring: “Remote monitoring. Make operating and trend data accessible anywhere, anytime, by your team or our HVAC experts” (source).

Ask whether any of that is set up on your machine, and what the control panel keeps in its history. Ask how the building automation system reads from the panel today, and who looks at what it records between breakdowns. A panel that has logged faults and run hours gives a visit something to start from.

Refrigerants on current York lines

Take the refrigerant from the nameplate, not a brochure, and ask which regulations apply to it. Have the type and the charge entered in the equipment record, then ask what they mean for leak detection, recovery and any replacement plan.

See the water-cooled chillers page. Under its YK-HT entry, it says: “Performance optimized with low-GWP refrigerants R-1234ze and R-515B”. That sentence concerns the YK-HT and says nothing about any other York model, so ask for the refrigerant on your own machine and do not infer it from a different model.

For newer refrigerant classes and what they change in a plant room, see the refrigerant transition page from our commercial team.

Magnetic bearings, drives and the maintenance list

See the same page for the YK-HT's drive statement: For the YK-HT, the water-cooled chillers page says: “Its single-driveline design improves reliability, simplifies service and eases retrofits” (source).

A machine with magnetic bearings or a drive raises its own questions. Who checks the bearing electronics, the drive and the incoming supply, and how often? What does the controller log about each? For a machine with conventional bearings, the equivalent questions concern oil condition and discharge temperature.

OEM parts and technical documentation

On parts, Johnson Controls' chiller parts page says: “Johnson Controls supplies YORK® OEM parts and technical documentation to ensure that your industrial or commercial chiller is running at peak performance.” (source).

Try a trial order on paper. Choose one component on your York chiller, ask who would identify it from the nameplate, who would source it, and who would give you a delivery date, then ask what the building does in the meantime. If the answers are vague now, they will not be clearer during a failure.

Site questions for a York chiller

Ask how your site's conditions are handled in the service plan. For an air-cooled machine, ask how often the condenser coils are cleaned, whether fin corrosion is inspected if the site is near salt water, and whether condensing pressure is recorded on hot afternoons. For a water-cooled machine, ask who owns condenser water treatment and whether the condenser approach is trended.

Ask about power loss too. Ask what the machine does after a power loss: whether it restarts unattended, whether it needs a manual reset, and whether the safeties were proven after the last power loss. Ask for restart behavior to be checked after any controls work.

Ask that the same readings be taken at every visit: leaving and entering chilled water temperature, evaporator and condenser pressures, approach on both barrels and compressor current against the nameplate.

Repair now, or plan replacement

Blume doesn't necessarily push one brand or another.

For a York machine, decide from its records, and ask to see them. Flat trends, a readable panel, obtainable parts and a serviceable refrigerant favor repair. A recurring leak, a panel the building system cannot read, or parts that cannot be sourced favor planning a replacement before the machine fails. Put a cost on an outage in the hottest month and ask for the evidence in writing.

Planning ahead? Our capital planning page shows how to budget a chiller as a dated expense. The chiller maintenance page sets out the measurements, the chiller system guide covers how the equipment works, and the chiller hub has the other brands. See the York residential page for residential equipment; it covers residential systems only.

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