AC/Heater Unit turning on and off, fan still blows...

[thestrangebrew1]

Hey All,

We've been miserable for the last few weeks and my wife pointed out to me over the weekend that she's noticed our unit turning on, then within about 20 seconds it'll shut off again. It'll do this constantly, and it was something I hadn't noticed before, so we've stopped using it for now. I've got an ecobee thermostat and temps in the house are anywhere between 83-88 degrees. We have it set to 78 and the unit just doesn't get there. Any ideas? The unit was installed Nov 2016 under warranty work because the previous unit was leaking water on our roof.

 

[mdram]

call a pro
could be many things, when it happened to me it was a bad cap

 

[Mr.IncrediblyBored]

call a pro
could be many things, when it happened to me it was a bad cap

Ditto.

If you're handy it's pretty easy and cheap to replace the capacitor in your condenser outside. I don't like messing with electricity so I called an HVAC guy. It took him just a few minutes to replace it.

 

[thestrangebrew1]

Thanks. I called the folks who installed it in 2016 and they're going out of business and don't service my area anymore. I'll have to call someone else now.

 

[Mr.IncrediblyBored]

Thanks. I called the folks who installed it in 2016 and they're going out of business and don't service my area anymore. I'll have to call someone else now.

Is the system still under some kind of warranty? Companies going bankrupt and reopening witha new name is such a shady way to do business.

 

[mdram]

should be under manufacturer warranty.

 

[thestrangebrew1]

Lady I spoke with said the unit has a warranty of 5-10 years so that shouldn't be an issue. I assume I have to pay labor though. The wife found out her boss' husband used to be in the HVAC business and he's coming over tonight to take a look and see what's wrong. Should know more by later tonight.

 

[bbhaag]

Try calling the manufacturer of your unit and see if they have any recommendations for a place in your area. Several years ago the compressor went out on our Goodman unit. I called Goodman explained the problem they said it was covered then asked if they knew of anyone in our area. The recommended Gibson Heating and Air. It was the best recommendation I ever had. They guy was really good and charged a fair price. I was sad to see him retire a few years ago.

 

[thestrangebrew1]

Good tip. The guy came over and found that it wasn't the capacitor. There are some contacts that were sparking so he cleaned the contacts a bit but it was still sparking. The unit fired up and the compressor came on but then shut off. He said the compressor didn't sound right and thinks it wasn't charged right, but to call a professional to really get into it. So here we go down this rabbit hole.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Is it staying on for minutes? To me a bad cap would prevent it from starting altogether. It almost sounds like something is overheating and going into thermal shutdown. Is the condenser unit fan running, and does it blow hot air? This might be hard to tell if it's not running long enough though as it would take a bit for the coils to warm up. Basically if the coils get warm it does confirm that the compressor is running properly, or at least properly enough to cool the house, but something it causing it to stop. If it's not warming up the coils at all then it could be seized. Is it louder than it should be? Like a loud 60hz buzz?

 

[boomerang]

He said the compressor didn't sound right and thinks it wasn't charged right, but to call a professional to really get into it. So here we go down this rabbit hole.

Take bbhagg's advice and call the manufacturer (I've done it through the Carrier website in the past because it had a rating system for their dealers) and get one out. You have a leak. Your refrigerant is low. One of the symptoms of that is rapid cycling which you're experiencing.

 

[snoopy7548]

Yeah, get someone to check the pressures. The system could be overcharged and quickly hitting the high-pressure shutoff threshold.

 

[thestrangebrew1]

We have a guy coming between 12-2pm today to check the levels and really do a look through. $60 for the diagnosis, who knows what for labor. Parts should be covered though so that will help on the wallet. We have a few days of triple digits coming up and I'm not looking forward to it.

 

[13Gigatons]

HA HA...central air is such a money pit.

 

[Red Squirrel]

HA HA...central air is such a money pit.

Well worth it when it's 30+ outside though. This summer has been crazy brutal hot.

 

[NutBucket]

HA HA...central air is such a money pit.

So is a house....

 

[thestrangebrew1]

Update: A professional came to look at the ac unit and found that 1 side of the unit was completely caked in dirt about a half inch thick. My unit was basically suffocating I guess. It was shutting down so the compressor wouldn't burn out. I'll post a pic tomorrow sometime but it's pretty crazy. Guy hosed it down and said it was the worst he'd ever seen. For a new unit it should not have had that much dirt on it. I have a field next door that gets disc'd once every 3 months or so, but the side that was caked was not in the windward direction. Really weird. Nonetheless the unit is blowing cold air again.

 

[thestrangebrew1]

Here's some pics:

 

[13Gigatons]

It's up on the roof....that will have more dust and dirt blowing around.

 

[thestrangebrew1]

It's up on the roof....that will have more dust and dirt blowing around.

There shouldn't be that much dust/dirt caked on my unit after 1.5 years of being installed. Either way, I'll just have to make sure I check on it monthly to make sure.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Wow you didn't mess around when you got A/C, that looks like a commercial grade unit. And yeah good idea to inspect it once in a while for dust build up. Never seen one get this bad though. Ia there forest fires in your area or something that would maybe generate lot of dust? It does seem odd to me as well it would get caked that fast.

 

[mrblotto]

wtf did you have a haboob roll thru or something?

 

[boomerang]

Based on the pictures what I am finding strange is that the right side is clogged and the left side is not and that there is a vertical dividing line between the two, the dark band. After cleaning, there is nothing to indicate a delineation between the two sides. Nothing that would lead one to understand why only the right half got clogged.

In the last picture shown is all the shrouding not fully replaced?

 

[thestrangebrew1]

It's definitely odd and I'm not sure how it got that bad in such a short time. I'm in the central valley so we constantly get smoke from fires in the Sierras, and from the Bay area. There is a field to the west of us, which is also where the wind typically blows from, but I could see build up after a few years, but not 1.5. I can't tell if the shrouding is fully replaced from the photo. I think it was.

 

[snoopy7548]

Is there any reason your unit is on the roof? Around here, they're all at ground-level (Northeast US). Being up there, I can understand why it's so caked with dirt - that's gotta be a pain to clean.