Home AC not cooling like it should

hornian

hornian

1,000+ Posts
It was fine until about 3 days ago. Now it won't cool down all the way.

When I say all the way, I put my thermostat at 80 during the day, and turn it down to about 75-76 when I get home, and then 72-73 when we go to bed. It would usually run for about 2-3 hours, get the house cool, and shut off for most of the night, and the temp. would stay around 72 until 8 or so in the morning when I leave, maybe turning on a couple times during the night, but almost always off when I woke up, with the house still cool. Oh, and my bedroom was almsot always cooler than the hall, where the thermostat is.

3 days ago, when I got home around 6 and turned the thermostat down to 75, the fan kicked on but it didn't really cool. It was still at 80 degrees at 10 pm. Granted we had been cooking, but that was done by 8. It was maybe 78 when I turned in around 11:30 and turned the thermostat down a couple more degrees, I think it has gotten down to maybe 74 in the hall, and hotter in my bedroom. And the unit doesn't turn off all night.

This is really odd. There is no sign that the outside unit is freezing up. It still turns on and the fan still blows. But it is decidedly not cool. The AC unit is a Carrier Puron unit that is about 3 years old. Any ideas?
 
Go outside to your fan and take a hose and spray it into the unit on all four sides. There are little aluminum(?) louvers that have gotten all dirty and won't allow the evaporative cooling to happen. Don't spray them so hard that you "dent" them, just gently rinse them until you don't see dirt running out below. That's often good for 4 or 5 degrees. If that doesn't do it, then you may have a leak and/or need some freon.

You can do it while the unit is running, but you might get a little wet.

You can change your sig back now.
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Oh yeah. I don't mean the outside case. I mean the "fins" inside the big metal box that has Carrier printed on it. You have to spray the water thru the larger vents to rinse the delicate fins.
 
We called our home warranty company for service and it turned out that our fan had burned out. It was acting like your's for a few days and then just burned out.
 
Sizzle sounds like your system might of frozen and might need to add freeon. I just had this issue a month ago, you can look into your unit and often times see the ice.
 
happened to my apt and freon was the problem. Look into gettin a guy to recharge it and also hose down hte unit like we had to do at my house last summer. hang in there and keep the box fans rollin
 
If you get a bunch of dirty water run out you might have done some good. If you have a freon leak this early on, that's not a very happy sign as they are pretty hard to find if they are so small that they take 3 years to manifest. I had such a problem and it showed up in year 3 and 4 years and 4 freon boosts later the technician says I need a new coil which was under warranty in year 3, but not in year 7.
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I wish he had recommended the $1,200 repair 4 years ago while it was under warranty. Instead, I found a different guy who put some new super leak-plug liquid in with the freon for $125.
 
I tried washing the fins, and last night I set the thermostat at 73, and when I woke up it was right at 73, which is the coolest it's been in about a week. The only quesstion I have is if the unit ever turned off, but the fact that's it's cooling better seems to be a good sign.

My bedroom was still a few degrees warmer than the rest of the house, though. I wonder if there is something blocking my vent...
 
Had a kids tee ball tourney this weekend and when we returned home, it was hot, hot, hot. Of course this coincided with me having to go out of town for a business trip. I noticed the hoses going into the house from the outside unit were frozen.

I then contacted an arbitrary place from the phone book and they said to turn off the AC and that if it's frozen outside, it's forzen in the inside evaporator unit closet. Well they came out and did a couple of things, and without opening the evaporator unit door, the dude said it's leaking and we need a whole new unit. Cheapest cost: $1,500 or up to $2,700 for nicer name brand stuff. Wow! I finally got a hold of a friend in the a/c business and he said I was getting ripped off and to cancel the service call. He finally came over and performed a couple of tests and determined where the leak was. They then spot welded the leak and added 9 lbs of refrigerant. Cost, $220.

Thats a $1,300 swing! These guys are honest and would have charged me the same if he knew me or not. They tried to figure out the problem instead of just saying we need a new unit. My buddy said it was akin to having a leak in a good car tire, and the mechanic saying we need 4 brand new tires. Good to know the family slept comfortably with a fixed unit.

PM me if you want the name and contact info of the service company that fixed my unit.
 
Big leaks are apparently fairly easy to find, but tiny leaks that take a year to manifest themselves in low cooling are apparently much harder to detect. I can't vouch for that, but it seems logical.
 
Yeah, I guess there isn't any moisture outside, but it sounded like I knew what I was talking about didn't it. Rinsing does help though.
 
I don't have any advice but I feel your pain. Our 20+ year old A/C croaked Monday night. On the hottest day of the year, of course. It needed to be replaced but dang I wish it could have held on until after we sold the place. At least the new A/C works well.
 
Looks like I was overly optimistic, the AC is still exhibiting the same symptoms. Oh well, I'm leaving for a week of hiking, fishing, and rafting in Colorado and Wyoming, so I'll deal with it when I get back. My roommates might get a little hot, though.
 
I can't believe that we're on page 2 and I haven't seen the word "filter" once. Check it and clean it.
 
How cold should the air be coming out of the vent?

I but a therm. in one and it registers 65 during the day an 59 at night.

Is that normal?
 
My father in law owns an A/C company in Houston-- I helped him out a couple summers in college

other things to consider

mid day are blinds closed?

How is the air flow near the bed room and how close is that to the thermostat? my wife loves closing the bedroom door-- 3 vents in there and cool, however the cool air doesn't flow into the hall and freezes us out--when we turn the temp up the kids are hot upstairs-- a 3-4 inch crack in the door and everyone is happy

Do you have a digtial thermostat? most of the old style have a 3 degree variance vs a digital w/ a 1 degree variance-- if you have it set for 75 it may get up to 78 before it kicks in-- a good 75- 100 dollar investment

are all ceiling fans on during the day? you can let he temp up a little that way

reality is that in Tx during the summer-- expecting it to cool off several degrees in the heat of the day may be more than some units can handle-- might be better to keep it cooler during the day since it won't catch up

freezing means you typically need freon-- you should wonder why since it's a closed system

crawl up in the attic and see how the drain pan under the heater/condenser until looks-- if its full of algea and green stuff or the water leve is high --go by a hardware store and get the stuff to clean it out-- it will overflow eventually and cause an ugly/expensive water stain
 
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