Steve@Advance
Well-known Member
Got up Saturday morning, Mom informed me the AC stayed on all night, never cycled off. This is a 3 ton central unit, 15+ year old Carrier, so it's on borrowed time.
I open it up, exactly one half of the evaporator was iced up, the other half was sweaty cold, but not iced. It has iced up before when it was low on refrigerant, but never only half! Never seen that before!
So, I turned the compressor off, left the fan on to thaw it, changed the filter. It was somewhat clogged, but not too bad. Waited about 3 hours, turned the compressor on. But it didn't come on!
Checked it out, power to the compressor, but not running, open leads. Had to take the fan off the top of the unit to get to the compressor, it's been off about 4 hours now, and it was still so hot you couldn't touch it!!!
Waited about 3 more hours, got my amp meter ready, tried it again, it started! To me, it sounded a little different, but may be my imagination.
Still wondering why it got so hot... Thought maybe the hard start had stuck in circuit, had the amp meter on the start cap when it started, but it started and dropped right out.
Checked the amp draw on the motor, it was high. Rated at 17.4 amps, it was drawing 21! Checked the run cap, nothing... The run cap is open. Don't have a new one, nothing open to go buy one. But it's running, not turning it off!
And so far, it has run. Cooling as it should, cycling, not icing, but it is running over amp. In fact, I noticed my electric use for the last week has been higher than the previous weeks when the temp was higher. So Monday I will replace the run cap, see if the amps come down.
And... Price a new heat pump system while I'm there! I think it's giving me fair warning, it's about time!
I open it up, exactly one half of the evaporator was iced up, the other half was sweaty cold, but not iced. It has iced up before when it was low on refrigerant, but never only half! Never seen that before!
So, I turned the compressor off, left the fan on to thaw it, changed the filter. It was somewhat clogged, but not too bad. Waited about 3 hours, turned the compressor on. But it didn't come on!
Checked it out, power to the compressor, but not running, open leads. Had to take the fan off the top of the unit to get to the compressor, it's been off about 4 hours now, and it was still so hot you couldn't touch it!!!
Waited about 3 more hours, got my amp meter ready, tried it again, it started! To me, it sounded a little different, but may be my imagination.
Still wondering why it got so hot... Thought maybe the hard start had stuck in circuit, had the amp meter on the start cap when it started, but it started and dropped right out.
Checked the amp draw on the motor, it was high. Rated at 17.4 amps, it was drawing 21! Checked the run cap, nothing... The run cap is open. Don't have a new one, nothing open to go buy one. But it's running, not turning it off!
And so far, it has run. Cooling as it should, cycling, not icing, but it is running over amp. In fact, I noticed my electric use for the last week has been higher than the previous weeks when the temp was higher. So Monday I will replace the run cap, see if the amps come down.
And... Price a new heat pump system while I'm there! I think it's giving me fair warning, it's about time!