Dear jhines45-ga;
Thank you for allowing me an opportunity to answer your interesting
question.
Alright
been there done that; heres the deal. Obviously I cant see
your air unit so I cant diagnose it for you personally, but one of
these scenarios is most likely your problem. It doesn't really matter
what brand it is as this symptom is a common indicator of a number of
things. Ill touch on all of them just to make sure that you or your
repairman dont overlook any of them:
This may not be an issue but its good to check anyway while youre at
it: If your air unit is running but not blowing cold air, find the
condenser. Youll see one or two (depending on your unit) copper tubes
or coils coming out of it. Carefully reach in there and touch the
copper tube (the larger one if there are two). If the surface of the
tube is warm two things are possible (1) your unit is low on freon
(refrigerant) and it needs to be recharged. In many areas, especially
metropolitan areas, only a licensed repairman can charge an air unit
with freon. Check you local building codes office about this. You
might be able to buy a kit in your area and do it yourself. A word of
caution here if youve never done it before, be careful. You can
really hurt yourself with compressed freon and you can also blow your
coils out if you dont do it correctly. (2) Your compressor is shot
and needs repair or replacement. Suggested alternative: pray that its
just a freon problem.
If the line is frozen or iced over, your problem is most likely, as
you suggested, an internal (in the house or inside the unit) airflow
problem. You may have a clogged filter or your filter may be old and
in need of replacement. If you think you have your filter on backward
and you cant tell which side goes down, buy a new one. If youve
had it so long that you can no longer read the directions on it, its
time for it to go. If you forgot how to put the filter back so you
just didnt do it get another one and do it. If you dont youll be
buying a new air unit much sooner that you really hoped to. If you
clean and/or replace your filters and the situation does not improve,
go to every room in your hose and make sure that all your registers
(those little vent ducts in your floor or ceiling in every room) are
opened wide and that nothing is covering them (furniture, rugs, toys,
the dog, whatever). Closed/partially closed registers can ruin your
air unit. Youll actually cool rooms much efficiently and keep them
cool (causing less stress on your air unit) if they are all open than
you will if you close them all except the ones in the room you are
wanting to rapidly cool.
However, a low freon charge can ALSO cause lines to freeze up just as
you described since the unit must work overtime to cool the home. Shut
your air unit completely off (go swimming or ice skating or something
cool like that while its thawing). Allow the unit and the lines to
COMPLETELY THAW before turning it back on. When its thawed out, turn
the little monster back on at a reasonable setting and see if there is
better performance. If it freezes up again in a few hours, youve
probably got a freon issue. Call the guy if you have to and have him
come out and charge it up for you.
Low freon is relatively easy to fix in comparison to other more
expensive problems, but be advised that you may also have a leak in
your coil or A-frame thats causing the freon to be low. While its
not unusual for air units to, for lack of a better term, consume a
little freon over time, it definitely be indicative of a leak in your
coil or somewhere if your unit is practically or completely empty.
Have the repairman check for that when he comes out.
Rip-Off Note: Act like you know all about air units but you just dont
have the time to check it yourself. He may think twice about trying to
run some expensive game on you like charging you an expensive fee for
fixing a leak that doesnt really exist if he thinks you know already
the deal. It always works for me.
Below you will find that I have carefully defined my search strategy
for you in the event that you need to search for more information. By
following the same type of searches that I did you may be able to
enhance the research I have provided even further. I hope you find
that that my research exceeds your expectations. If you have any
questions about my research please post a clarification request prior
to rating the answer. Otherwise, I welcome your rating and your final
comments and I look forward to working with you again in the near
future. Thank you for bringing your question to us.
Best regards;
Tutuzdad-ga
INFORMATION SOURCES
WARMAIR.NET
http://www.warmair.net/html/troubleshooting.htm
HANDYMAN USA
http://www.handymanusa.com/questions/airconditioningq.html
IMPROVENET
http://www.improvenet.com/adviceandresources/warmair/troubleshoot.html
SEARCH STRATEGY
SEARCH ENGINE USED:
Google ://www.google.com
SEARCH TERMS USED:
CENTRAL AIR LINES FREEZE
CENTRAL AIR FREEZE UP
CENTRAL AIR FREEZES UP |