A/C working properly? Cost -> lower temp?

[<kjpro]

Why not find and repair the leak?

[mm]

You missed his point, that hours can mean 2 or 200. So we don&#39;t know your personality and what you would have said it if, in your opinion, it wasn&#39;t, and even if you would not have said "hours" if it wasn&#39;t, we still didn&#39;t know how many hours. You could have said 7 hours and that would have been clear.

Don&#39;t be snotty, especially when you&#39;re asking for free advice.

Is there any chance the fan is on ON, and the thermostat is not accurate? Turn the thermostat down to 70 and see if goes lower than it is now.

Also check the outside unit and see if it is making noise, and see if you can tell if the noise is the fan and the compressor, or just the fan.

[mm]

Ask him what the problem is, and how long it will take to fix it.

Since he doesn&#39;t work for you, he may not tell you, but if you are nice, and not the least bit snotty, he may well tell you.

Maybe ask him if it&#39;s worth repairing or not, although that is not his decision and he may be much less willing to speculate. OTOH, if he knows it&#39;s a 50 dollar problem, he may be wiling to speculate. But you have to be even nicer to get answers to hard questions. (sometimes even when you yourself are paying).

[carie_r]

You&#39;ve got to be kidding. Enough "hours" that any human who has ever used A/C would recognize that there&#39;s a problem. Here&#39;s what he said: "Running for hours could mean anything more than one hour. There&#39;s not much information there. Let it run overnight. If it can&#39;t bring the apartment down to temperature overnight, then there&#39;s something definitely wrong with it."

Gee, do you really think there&#39;s something wrong if it can&#39;t get down to 80 deg overnight??? (It would do that with open windows and no A/ C.) I think I was more than polite.

The fan is on "Auto," so as to not recirculate air through vents in a hot attic when the compressor isn&#39;t on.

[carie_r]

The landlord is required to keep the A/C working properly. Are you suggesting that underhanded behavior is so common as to be practically expected?

[BobK207]

OP-

Your original post was unclear as to exactly how many "hours" it had been running 2? 3? 6?

Trying to determine AC performance without thermometer is futile

Oh & for clarity don&#39;t use 12:00PM ....use noon or midnight to avoid confusion

Clearly your AC unit is not working....for a 800 sq ft apt get a window unit. It&#39;s in your interest to reduce the operating costs you can easily save the cost of the unit in a few months.

cheers Bob

[mm]

No I"m not. Plenty of idiots post here. How do we tell who is an idiot and who isn&#39;t? Even half or more of the seemingly smart people fail to give enough information in their first post. EVen things they already know.

We had one a couple days ago who dribbled out the important information a little at a time until most people had I&#39;m sure stopped reading the thread before all the important facts were in.

And did you say that you had ever used AC before?

And again, you hadn&#39;t said how many hours. We can&#39;t read your mind.

What you think that any buman (who has ever used AC) would recognize might well not be what someone else thinks.

You were no way "more than polite". I think you were less than polite. You told him how many hours and then said "I would not have said "hours" if it wasn&#39;t..." as though he is supposed to know you personally and know you how reliably you report the facts. As if he had insulted you and you had to make it clear that you didn&#39;t deserve the insult. I woudn&#39;t have given the reply he did , but he didn&#39;t insult you. He explained why "hours" wasn&#39;t enough, and then he made a suggestion, to run it overnight, I presume because you first posted at 7:24PM Eastern Time.

And even if you are 100% reliable, you still don&#39;t get it that different people have different ideas of what is enough time for things to cool down. It&#39;s inevitable that at least a few of them will think that too little time is enough. How do we know you&#39;re not in that category?

Most people, when they said hours and the other person said, in whatever words, How many hours?, would just have replied, "Sorry. Seven."

Good to know.

The reason is fine, but even someone who intends to keep his fan on Auto, for whatever reason, might accidentally knock it to ON. Or he might put it to ON for testing and forget that he did so. Just yesterday someone posted about flipping a switch and not remembering a that he did. That&#39;s why it&#39;s important to check.

>

[mm]

BTW, in practice, I don&#39;t think the guy&#39;s certifications matter. I guess that&#39;s why I skipped this part before. He&#39;s the guy the landlord or the AC contractor chose to send. If I were the AC contractor, I&#39;d want to hire someone with certification**, and if he is going to recharge the system, I gather he must have certification, but one can know just as much without certification as with, and the important thing is that he diagnose the problem correctly. I don&#39;t have much AC experience but I"ve been misdiagosed over the years by 4 medical doctors with certification, 2 of them specialists, so certification doesn&#39;t impress me anymore.

**although if I had someone I knew knew AC, and he didn&#39;t have cert, but was cheaper to hire, and he wasn&#39;t going to be the only tech, I&#39;d hire him too. He can diagnose and do other repairs, and if it needs recharging, I&#39;ll send the certified guy.

Within a reasonable time, of learning it&#39;s not working properly. I think that is the law in all US states, unless the lease says something different, which it most likely doesn&#39;t. NYC and many places have more specific laws about providing heat, but I think not about providing AC.

I didn&#39;t suggest anything underhanded at all, on the part of the repairman or the landlord. What words are you referring to where you think I did?

It&#39;s often hard to get a good answer out of a repairman, whether you are paying the bill or someone else is, and I&#39;m not quite sure why**, but I don&#39;t think there is anything underhanded about it, except in a few cases that I don&#39;t think apply to you. They don&#39;t apply to you because he&#39;s not working for you, he works for the landlord. They probably don&#39;t apply to the landlord either, because all but the smallest landlords are a source of repeat business for contractors.

**Probably IMO the biggest reason is, if he&#39;s not the boss of the repair company, he doesn&#39;t want to make decisions that his employer has the power and right to make. He doesn&#39;t want to get caught in the middle between the customer and his boss, so he tells his boss what the situation is, and the boss deals with the customer. In this case, with a landlord/tenant, even if the repairman is the boss of his own company, he won&#39;t want to get caught between his "employer", the landlord who hires him, and the tenant. But this is not underhanded. It&#39;s totally reasonable. And the consequences when someone does get caught in the middle are often more than enough to keep him from ever letting it happen again.

Pretty much the only way out of this, afaict, for the customer is to seem like a regular guy who won&#39;t make a stink if the boss later contradicts the employee, or the landlord contradicts the contractor, because a regular guy understands that the boss is the boss, and the employee can&#39;t actually make committments. Once one gives that impression, he has to actually live up to it, or he, or she, is a scoundrel and dishonorable.

I"m not talking about accepting shoddy work. I&#39;m talking about asking the guy who comes to your house what the problem is, and how long it will take to fix it, and whether it is worth repairing it or not, and then if and when the boss or the landlord gives one different answers, saying, "Well the guy who was here says yada yada which contradicts you." One shouldn&#39;t say that.

Unless it is a literal life and death matter, and I can&#39;t imagine how that could be, one shouldn&#39;t do that. It doesn&#39;t matter what the guy tells you when he&#39;s there. It only matters that the AC gets fixed, and nothing the repair man SAYS to you has any effect on that.

If the guy tells you something and the boss or landlord tells you something else, one should just suck it up and not get the guy in trouble. If you get him in trouble -- even if he doesn&#39;t get in trouble, but he knows a customer quoted him when the boss said something else -- he&#39;ll never tell another customer a thing.

You may never know for sure who is right. Them&#39;s the breaks. Maybe the techician made a mistake, and somehow the boss knows it without even seeing the jobsite. Maybe the boss or landlord knows something the repair guy doesn&#39;t know. Maybe the landlord plans to replace the whole system in a year or two**, but doesn&#39;t want to say that or the tenants will hold him to it, even if he doesn&#39;t have as much money as he thinks he will (like if one or two apartments are unexpectedly vacant for a while) It&#39;s not at all necessary for either to be lying or underhanded for them to say different things.

**Maybe the landlord plans to sell the building in a year or two and isn&#39;t willing to do all the repairs he should. I&#39;m not saying every landlord does everything he should or that every repairman always does everything right. But I have no reason to think and didn&#39;t suggest that there was anything underhanded in this case.

[HeyBub]

Hmm. 12:00PM implies twelve hours past midday (p.m. = "post meridian" = past midday). That would be midnight. From there to 7:46PM means the ac has been on for almost twenty hours.

Of course one could also say 12:00AM (a.m. = "ante meridian" = before midday) which would also be midnight.

[Jeffrey Lebowski]

Got any of guys?

[Noon-Air]

Only from landlords whos only concern is their profits on the bottom line. They are not gonna spend a penny they are not forced to.

[carie_r]

...

...

I wouldn&#39;t want advice from someone who didn&#39;t know, clearly, without having to think about it for an instanct, that 12:00PM is noon, and

12:00AM is midnight.

[carie_r]

BobK207 thinks enough of peoples intelligence to say "Oh & for clarity don&#39;t use 12:00PM ....use noon or midnight to avoid confusion." (The next most recent post in this thread, sorted by time.)

[carie_r]

Sorry, 12:00PM is noon. Have a High School diploma?? Is English your native language??

[The Freon Cowboy]

yeah, youll get a lot more bee&#39;s with honey "honey" wrong attitude to have is one of snottiness and arrogance, nothing pisses me off faster on a call than having somebody who already "knows" whats wrong with it , if you knew , why are you calling me ? anyway , i would guess you have a "leaker" having been in the rental business , i can tell you that most recureent problems with rental ac, are leaks , if the filters are clean ,coils are clean , and everything is running , from the sounds of it , they came a while back and it worked for a while now its not cooling again. cant say for certain cuz i cnat see it or lay hands on it , but again having worked in that business for a while , i&#39;d bet even money on it

and hate to say this , but , your landlord probably wont spend a dime more than he has to, a two ton unit should be plenty to cool 800 sq ft if you can get the "handyman" to tell you what he does , then act on it , if he just "puts some freon in it " and its down again , then you know what the problem is , and seriously , sometimes in apartment buildings its cheaper to just gas em up

than try to find the leak . since its often in a sweated together joint thats buried in a wall somewhere ,

best suggestion i hear yet , was to buy a window unit , and screw it .

but sweetheart , your not gonna get much help or advice in here with the current "tude" you have seen to have taken,

read the above , thats all you can do, thats all you could know without doing this everyday like most of us in here ,

and b.t.w , if you&#39;ll read the charter on this ng it was origianlly intended to be forum for the exchange of ideas and information by and for those professionally engaged in the hvac-r industry not a clearinghouse for homeowners, wannabe&#39;s and weekend warriors.

Good Luck! Now go Eat your Curds and whey and leave us al

[<kjpro]

Your post means nothing, did you miss her $320 electric bill.

What that means, is that the unit is running excessively!!!!!

[<kjpro]

Geez.... $320 electric bill people.

Come-on... are you all clueless???????

[<kjpro]

Again, did you miss the $320 electric bill.

Clueless I tell you, just pure stupidity!

[BobK207]

I know how to tell time I wasn&#39;t sure YOU did based on the problem solving skills you have displayed thus far

noon or midnight eliminates any possible confusion as does "seven hours" vs "hours" :)

the more humble & helpful (clearly posed questions) you appear the more likely you&#39;ll get help

I know you&#39;re frustrated having a problem that you don&#39;t have the skills or resources to address but pissing off people who could possibly help you isn&#39;t a good idead.

btw

my A/C works fine (& I know how they work) I don&#39;t have to ask for help from a bunch of abuse a$$&#39;s in alt.hvac & I don&#39;t live in an 800 sq ft apt at the mercy of some cheap landlord

stop whining & get a window unit.......you&#39;ve already pissed away more than the cost of a unit on electricity

have a nice day :)

[carie_r]

On Jul 6, 7:24 pm, [e-mail] wrote:

Maintenance came today. He hooked an electric probe in two places, and in two minutes he said "it&#39;s fine." He hadn&#39;t checked the output temperature. I asked him to do that. (The A/C was off before he came, as it wasn&#39;t working right, so it&#39;s only been running for a couple minutes.) He went back to his van and got a thermometer (laser, interesting). The output temperature was 70 deg, and the house was 82 deg. I said it should be 20 deg. "Why do you think it should be 20 deg different?" he says. I told him that&#39;s what I found on the internet. He checked more wires with his probe for another 5 minutes, then checked the temperature again. It now said 64 deg (18 deg different). He said it had to run for a while to get to that temp. (Recall, he just asked why I thought is should be 20 deg.) I explained the problem of it not cooling down below 83 deg in 7 hours, and never having an electric bill like we just had in the year and a half we&#39;d already been here. He didn&#39;t have anything to say, and didn&#39;t check anything else. He never looked at the outside part of the unit. I asked if he had a contractor HVAC license as he was leaving. He said yes. I said I&#39;d come down with him and write the number down. When I got to his van he said I&#39;m not giving you my contractors number, the landlord has it. I said I need to keep proper records because the cooling bill is outragous, and the A/C is not cooling the apartment. He wouldn&#39;t give it to me. I said well then I&#39;ll write down your plate number and write the state about it.

(Also, he said the previous problem las month was a broken relay.)

Unfortunately, the law doesn&#39;t require him to have a license. I just found the following on the net: G.S. 87-21 (c) To Whom Article Applies. - The provisions of this Article shall apply to all persons, firms, or corporations who engage in, or attempt to engage in, the business of plumbing, heating, or fire sprinkler contracting, or any combination thereof as defined in this Article. The provisions of this Article shall not apply to those who make minor repairs or minor replacements to an already installed system of plumbing or heating, but shall apply to those who make repairs, replacements, or modifications to an already installed fire sprinkler system.