Hi Kerry, hope you are having a nice day
On 27-Jul-03 At About 22:30:18, Kerry wrote to All Subject: AC tripped at main breaker.....please advise
K> From: snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com (Kerry)
K> I am hoping you can all help me. Here is the story....
K> We live in a 1.5 year old house. Our AC coils our in our atic, then
Air handler is the proper term.
K> we have the blower unit thing outdoors (sorry I don't know the real K> names of these things).
Condensing unit if it is A/C only or outdoor unit if it is a heat pump.
K> We were away for the weekend and left the AC set at 85 degrees. It K> was a hot weekend and the outside temp got up over 100 (probably K> around 104). Anyway, when we returned home last night, our house was K> a very warm 87 degrees. The fan was blowing but no cold air was K> coming out. So I went outside and the outdoor portion of the AC unit K> was not on. I put my ear up to it and could hear a faint electical K> buzz. So it was getting power.
That was the contactor pulled in, it wasn't getting power or it would have been running and resetting the breaker wouldn't have started it again.
K> A few questions.... 1) What does the breaker control? The fan in the K> house was still running and the unit outside still seemed to have K> power (since I could hear the slight buzz). Does the breaker just K> control the coils?
It powers the condensing unit outside.
K> 2) What can cause the breaker to trip? And is that mean something K> really bad is wrong?
without being able to see it I couldn't even begin to guess as it could be any one of several things.
K> 3) The fact that it tripped concerns me.
as it should.
K> Is this something that happens sometimes in really hot weather or is it K> more likely a problem with my AC?
No it shouldn't happen, I would have it checked by a local company just to be sure but it also could have been a power outage or surge that could have done it.
K> 4) I have no idea how long the fan in my house had been running K> before I came home. My guess is that it had been running for a long K> time (many hours if not a whole day) trying to cool the house K> without luck. Was that really bad for it? We let it rest overnight K> before we tried it this morning.
The blower motor is designed to run constantly so there shouldn't have been any damage.
-=> HvacTech2