A/C unit question

[kmac30]

last night one of my a/c units decided to lock up. i say lock up, but i have no idea what's wrong with it. it's small and just handles our bedroom. the outside unit is making a horrible noise and the fan on it isn't turning on. someone is coming out in a few hours.

anyone know anything about a/c units? i know this one is old. i bought this house 2+ years ago and the inspector told me they might not last a whole lot longer.

should i have to buy another, anyone have any recs?

 

[NickDanger]

If you called an A/C man that you don't have a long history with, you are probably going to be told that you need a whole new system. Especially if you called one of those cats that does a lot of advertising.

Your problem sounds to me like your fan motor went out. That should be under $100 for the fan and then about that much for labor. If the system froze up on you, that is more serious, but doesn't necessarily mean you need a whole new system by any means. I have 4 systems and it seems like I am charging one up every year. One unit was being charged every year and my guy put some freon (or whatever) leak-stop in it and I haven't had to do a thing to it in 5 years. That was 3 years after "The Beyer Bros" told me I needed a whole new system that they estimated at about what I had paid for 3 of my 4 systems which were installed from scratch.

It really "sounds" like the bearing on your fan motor went out.

 

[kmac30]

thanks for the info. i'm definitely not going with someone big. my old landlord has people he's used for years so i usually get my repair people from him.

 

[NickDanger]

Good. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you. FYI, a fairly new product that intrigues the heck outta me is the Mr. Slim products from Mitsubishi. Especially for single to three room applications. Ductless air conditioning w/heat pumps.

 

[kmac30]

ANTS! yes... ants are the reason my ac unit was locking. guy takes the panel of the electrics and there are about 20 ants in there. he looks at the switch that closes when the circuit is hot and sure enough, there are about 5 ants dead on the panel. he knocked the ants out, scraped the ant guts away, and sure enough, we're golden.

while he was out, he checked out the unit to see if there was anything to be concerned about and showed me how to do somethings on my own. explained/showed how to handle this should it happen again (put ant bait and killer in the area, so it shouldn't happen anytime soon)

had to pay the service fee, but that was it. Davis Service Company is who I used. guy that came out was Rick and he was really nice about everything.

 

[accuratehorn]

Yes, ants like electrical relays for some strange reason. The switch turns on two things-the fan and the compressor. Sounds like the compressor was coming on but not the fan.
The fan has a little door where you open it up and drop a few drops of oil in to lubricate the bearing-if you never do this, the fan will go out on you, and you will have the same symptoms.

 

[NickDanger]

Glad you avoided the big repair bill.