Found out my compressor gauge was lying to me for 6 months

Went to a call last week for a fridge not cooling in a rental unit outside Tacoma. Checked my manifold, saw 45 psi on the low side, thought it was a bad start relay. Replaced it and left. Tenant called back two days later, same problem. On the second trip I used the tenant's cheap gauge I had in the van and it read 55 psi. Turns out my main gauge was off by 10 psi the whole time. The compressor was starving for refrigerant and I may have caused extra wear by running it low for months. Has anyone else had a gauge drift without them noticing until a second opinion? How often do you guys recalibrate or send yours out for a check?

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1 Comment

felixfisher10d ago

Trusting a tool you use every day is like trusting your own hands until it proves it's lying to you. Same thing happened with my buddy's laser level, it was off by a hair and he framed a whole closet crooked before he noticed. Tools drift, it's just a fact of life, nothing's built to stay perfect forever. I try to check my stuff against a known good one every few months now, just a quick sanity check before I trust it on a job. The scary part is that a small lie adds up over time, you know, it's not the one reading, it's the six months of wrong ones. We all got that one tool in the bag we don't fully trust though, and that's usually the one that bites you in the ass.