Cost of items

[D2Cat]

I was going to post this in the "Daily Chuckle" thread, but thought others would have some crazy examples.

I working on setting up a sprayer in the back of my Polaris Ranger. Need a 3/8" steel pipe union. First store I went to didn't have one. Second store let me out the door for $7.09 (and thankfully that included tax!).

Glad I'm not building a house!

 

[hagrid]

5 years ago you could've had that in red brass.

 

[jimh406]

It's ok ... everything is going to the plan.

In other news, my Grader Scraper mount for one of my blades broke the welds on one side. The funny thing is that it's the side that should have the least pressure on it. That's a welding job for me tomorrow once I find a way to align the angle to where it was. Fwiw, the "frame" appears to be the cost of a grader scraper, so welding it is.

At least, they made it so that the skid shoes are replaceable. While I was at it, I did a total look over. That's good because they are worn out, too. Oh, cost online for the skid shoes appears to be about $160. That's a good deal compared to your union.

 

[cthomas]

Went to get a 30 pound tank of R-134a and was told it was $349.99. Bought the last one a few years ago for $84.99

 

[fried1765]

Went to get a 30 pound tank of R-134a and was told it was $349.99. Bought the last one a few years ago for $84.99

I still have a nearly full 30# tank of R12.
Wonder what that is worth?

 

[motionclone]

Grass seed last year was like $180 for a 25lb bag. Made me realize how dandylions and other weeds look similar to grass when cut so that works for me

 

[civlized]

I still have a nearly full 30# tank of R12.
Wonder what that is worth?

Probably close to gold!

 

[civlized]

I started building a shop couple of years ago. I used my new little tractor for digging the trenches for sewage, water, and power. I had stubbed out of the foundation with 3 inch electrical conduit. I think a 10 foot stick was around $30 at the time. By the time I had my trenches dug and ready for pipe, it had gone up to $90 for 10 feet of 3 inch!
I ended up reducing to 2 inch and still paid around $40 a stick. I was furious!!
Really wanted 3 inch in case of future pulls.

 

[Fordtech86]

10 lbs of the “new” freon is only around $500

R-1234YF Refrigerant 10lb Cylinder Chemours/Opteon YF MADE IN USA

We provide R1234YF Refrigerant 10 lb cans developed as a more environmentally friendly alternative to HFC-134a. Use Opteon refrigerant to reduce environmental impact.

royalrefrigerants.com

 

[Workerbee]

I can imagine itd be a real pain to try selling that r12. Probably be a brown shirt behind every bush…

 

[lugbolt]

R12 can still be bought if you have a 609 (I do). It's cost isn't much different than R134A if you know where to buy it. For years people were scalping, and got away with it. Those days are gone, ain't much call for R12 anymore. R134A is being slowly phased out, so if you have some, hang onto it, it's value will likely go up like R12 did until people figured it out.

But back to OP, yeah, everything's up. Used equipment has kind of settled down, prices are not going higher and higher now, they've kind of leveled off. New stuff hasn't had an increase in 2 months, which is unusual. For a while it was a monthly deal and sometimes weekly. But with costs going up, wages NOT going up (unless you're on minimum wage or SS or Disability), people ain't buying like they were. That in itself is unfortunate byproduct of the inflation which was predicted.

 

[Bmyers]

I started building a shop couple of years ago. I used my new little tractor for digging the trenches for sewage, water, and power. I had stubbed out of the foundation with 3 inch electrical conduit. I think a 10 foot stick was around $30 at the time. By the time I had my trenches dug and ready for pipe, it had gone up to $90 for 10 feet of 3 inch!
I ended up reducing to 2 inch and still paid around $40 a stick. I was furious!!
Really wanted 3 inch in case of future pulls.

At the company I work for, we have an electrical division. At the beak of craziness, we could only get a one business day price guarantee. At the end of the day, price was no good and you had to call back the supplier the next morning upon opening. We are now back to being able to get 30-day price on most material with a few limited to 14-days. All our contracts have a material escalation clause in them now.

 

[DustyRusty]

I still have a nearly full 30# tank of R12.
Wonder what that is worth?

The demand for R12 has greatly diminished. The only cars that use it are those of the1950s, 1960s & 1970s. Most of those cars have been converted to R134A, or do not have working air conditioning. I have enough for my personal use, and I doubt that I will ever run out. Most people that service the older cars would prefer to switch over to the R134A than spend the time necessary to properly service a R12 system. I have 2 cars that have R12 in them and they work well till this day. I would never convert a system to a different refrigerant. The systems are designed around the refrigerant and when you convert them to a different refrigerant, almost always they don't work as well as they did on the original refrigerant.

 

[The Evil Twin]

Recently, I found an old receipt from McDonald's in a box of junk we pulled out of storage. It was dated 1/17/21. The same Big Mac meal today is $2.85 more excluding tax. A 35% increase over two years.
But hey, we can order Chinesium knock off Nike shoes for $20!

 

[GeoHorn]

I still have a nearly full 30# tank of R12.
Wonder what that is worth?

A hefty-fine if you get caught using it improperly…

I bought a 20 lb tank of it in 1990 (think) for $200…. I gave it away almost full to a church member who had a classic-car needing it. He told me his only other option was to convert the AC or to pay an AC-specialist $750 to service it with 2 lbs of R12.

I get it that freon hurts the environment.… but when I took my old R12 refrigerator to be recycled…. the licensed recycler deliberately punctured the system, drained some oil out, and tossed the unit into a pile of others.

When I replaced the fan on my central air condenser unit last year I accidentally punctured the R22 coils with a sheet metal screw releasing several lbs of freon into the air. The repairman showed up after I soldered the hole shut and serviced the unit with several lbs of “Puron”..(410) and charged me $80 for the service call and $1500 for the Puron. I checked with his competitor who confirmed the relative price of Puron for a 5 ton unit.

It’s my belief that the compressor failed 6 mo later When the Puron mixed with the old lubricant/R22 mix failed to keep the compressor properly lubed.…but I’m only guessing after reading up on it. A new Carrier 5 ton condenser and new evaporator installation cost me $6K last month.

 

[Runs With Scissors]

5lbs of R22 just cost me $300.

3 years ago it was $330 for 20 lbs.

 

[The Evil Twin]

A hefty-fine if you get caught using it improperly…

I bought a 20 lb tank of it in 1990 (think) for $200…. I gave it away almost full to a church member who had a classic-car needing it. He told me his only other option was to convert the AC or to pay an AC-specialist $750 to service it with 2 lbs of R12.

I get it that freon hurts the environment.… but when I took my old R12 refrigerator to be recycled…. the licensed recycler deliberately punctured the system, drained some oil out, and tossed the unit into a pile of others.

When I replaced the fan on my central air condenser unit last year I accidentally punctured the R22 coils with a sheet metal screw releasing several lbs of freon into the air. The repairman showed up after I soldered the hole shut and serviced the unit with several lbs of “Puron”..(410) and charged me $80 for the service call and $1500 for the Puron. I checked with his competitor who confirmed the relative price of Puron for a 5 ton unit.

It’s my belief that the compressor failed 6 mo later When the Puron mixed with the old lubricant/R22 mix failed to keep the compressor properly lubed.…but I’m only guessing after reading up on it. A new Carrier 5 ton condenser and new evaporator installation cost me $6K last month.

That compressor failure was probably due to the fact he mixed 2 incompatible refrigerants. And, if you used solder/ Flux and not 80/15/5 brazing rod.
It was probably the refer though. They are have completely different properties and oil requirements.

 

[civlized]

Long time ago, I worked with a guy that used butane in his old car air conditioner. It had the coldest air I have ever felt from a car AC.

I have a travel trailer with 2 AC's. One of them had a leak and stopped cooling. These units are not supposed to be serviceable, but good ol' Amazon has saddle valves that makes them so. I got the saddle valve and filled my rooftop with R-134A. It was originally, maybe R22, not sure but I know it wasn't R134A. I was told it would ruin the unit, it will never work, blah blah. It's been over 10 years and it still works fine. I figured it wasn't working anyway, what can it hurt to try. Worst case I have to buy a new unit, because it already didn't work. Gas compresses to liquid and gets hot, expands from liquid to gas and gets cool.

Now that I think about it, I also have a portable AC that had 410A in it (or was supposed to). I bought it from Amazon, also. It is one of the nicer, 2 hose unit, that I got for my garage. It was delivered in a non working condition. I was going to return it, but I really needed it and had waited a couple of weeks for delivery. I pulled out one of those saddle valves and put on the unit. 0 pressure, it was actually still under a vacuum. I guess it never got filled at the factory. I put 134A in it and it still works around 6 or 7 years later.

 

[fried1765]

A hefty-fine if you get caught using it improperly…

I bought a 20 lb tank of it in 1990 (think) for $200…. I gave it away almost full to a church member who had a classic-car needing it. He told me his only other option was to convert the AC or to pay an AC-specialist $750 to service it with 2 lbs of R12.

I get it that freon hurts the environment.… but when I took my old R12 refrigerator to be recycled…. the licensed recycler deliberately punctured the system, drained some oil out, and tossed the unit into a pile of others.

When I replaced the fan on my central air condenser unit last year I accidentally punctured the R22 coils with a sheet metal screw releasing several lbs of freon into the air. The repairman showed up after I soldered the hole shut and serviced the unit with several lbs of “Puron”..(410) and charged me $80 for the service call and $1500 for the Puron. I checked with his competitor who confirmed the relative price of Puron for a 5 ton unit.

It’s my belief that the compressor failed 6 mo later When the Puron mixed with the old lubricant/R22 mix failed to keep the compressor properly lubed.…but I’m only guessing after reading up on it. A new Carrier 5 ton condenser and new evaporator installation cost me $6K last month.

I have absolutely no intention of "using it", but I would lke to sell it.

 

[GeoHorn]

That compressor failure was probably due to the fact he mixed 2 incompatible refrigerants. And, if you used solder/ Flux and not 80/15/5 brazing rod.
It was probably the refer though. They are have completely different properties and oil requirements.

It was silver-solder, which I believe is appropriate.