What's wrong with my A/C?

Aug 13, 2004 19 Replies

I have a 25 year old General Electric central air conditioner.



Today, the weather here in N.J. is extremely warm and humid. It was about 80º in the house. I noticed that when I set the thermostat to cool to 77º the air which was coming from the vents wasn't especially cool. I replaced the filter which was a bit clogged hoping that would help but it didn't seem to make a difference.



Anyone have an educated guess?



Thanks,



Sy


Did you try kicking the thing and screaming some choice cuss words?

Age?

Seriously, with this tiny bit of information there's no way to tell. Have a service company check it and if you aren't thinking about it already, think seriously about replacement.

- Robert

I don't have a clue. Could be lots of things.

Given the age, you can save a bundle of money in energy cost with a new model. Suffer through the next month and take advantage of a winter special.

wrote

You answered the subject line question with your first sentence:

The clogged filter could have caused liquid slugging of the compressor which would damage the valves - causing it to lose efficiency. (OR) High humidity will result in much less sensible temperature drop out the supply air diffusers.

Darrell udarrell

I'd suggest turning the thermostat down a bit more to make sure that it is truly calling for cooling.

Check the condenser unit outside to make sure it is running and that the airflow is not blocked/reduced by overgrown grass, bushes, etc.

Check the fuses/ circuit breakers....there's often breakers in the main service panel as well as one outside by the condenser.

Check the pipes running from the outside unit into the furnace plenum. The larger pipe should be cold to the touch but no ice/frost visible. The other pipe will be warm.

You could try cleaning the A-coil. It is a bit messy, and may require you to cut an access hole in your furnace with tin snips. Do a search on "clean A-coil".

If the airflow is not cool at the room registers, I would call in an HVAC pro.

Mr. Fixit eh

It needs serviced?

~kjpro~

Climatuff compressor, Doubtful.

~kjpro~

You should read the hilarious reply a customer of mine got from Trane..... Homeowner requested a tear down to see why her 6 year old compressor failed in her package unit. Red Tag teardown indicated locked rotor as our field diagnosis had. They faulted scoring indicating a floodback as well as low oil level in crankcase. They went on to say that most likely a leak had occurred and the unit had operated with low charge, thus causing oil loss at the compressor due to the low refrigerant velocity. Wait, they didn't stop there, they added that then the unit was likely overcharged after the leak was repaired causing the floodback that locked up the Climatufffffffffff.

This was a new customer, we checked the unit completely when replacing the compressor including the ductwork sizing, coil cleanliness, etc. All were A-OK. She has never had the unit worked on....... I know - PM - but she keeps the filter clean and the unit is well maintained (coils cleaned, etc.) Needless to say, they denied a desire to pay for the year out of warranty compressor....... She kept telling the tech, I bought a Trane because I heard they were the best...... Problems are available in all brands! :-)

- Robert

Pure bullshit.

or

S*it happens!!

S*it happens, evidently you don't know Robert. (He's *NOT* a dave or stormin)

~kjpro~

[[ This message was both posted and mailed: see the "To," "Cc," and "Newsgroups" headers for details. ]]

Turns out you had the asnswer:

circuit breaker by the condenser tripped.

Thanks

Now, that you found the issue, what caused it to trip is the actual problem.

You treated the symptom, not the problem.

~kjpro~

[[ This message was both posted and mailed: see the "To," "Cc," and "Newsgroups" headers for details. ]]

The A/C guy thought it was tripped because of a recent electrical storm.

Sometimes I guess the mfg just wings it. I meant that Robert's shop was unjustly slammed with the mfg's scenario of what killed the compressor. Pure bullshit.

Yep, the mfg pulled that one outta their ass. It didn't look bad on me since it was a new customer but as we know, they would have had the same reply even if I had serviced the unit in the past. All they had to say was that the compressor had indeed failed but was outside the factory's 5 year warranty but it's easier for them to shift the blame as a reason to deny covering it under an expired warranty!

- Robert

Climatufffffffffff.

And even if he posted all the required tech data, you still wouldn't know what to do then either!

Whatever happened to the new system you installed and couldn't figure out what you did wrong? (did you just duck and run as usual?)

~kjpro~

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