SBN and/or TD came to visit me last night.

[JB]

I woke up in my recliner about 0100, sweating like an athlete. It was about 85 in my house and the blower in the A/C was howling away, but there was no air flow from the ducts!!

What the heck!!???

I checked all the ducts. Same thing. . .no air. I went to the closet where the unit lives and found the blower laboring away. Still no air from any duct.

OH, woe is me.

I opened a few windows and put an exhaust fan at one end of my house.

I spent the night imagining what might be the trouble. I imagined everything from critters crawling around in my ventilation system to the sudden building of a huge mouse/rat nest. Bad, bad dreams that I won't detail.

This morning I got my tools and flashlight and attacked the skirting where there used to be an access door. I had recently had the skirting overhauled and the guy screwed the door closed. I got it off and pointed my flashlight at the air distribution system. Saw nothing amiss.

Well, gotta call the HVAC guy but I want to give him as much detail as possible so I turned the A/C back on to find more symptoms.

Cold air rushed throughout my house. Cold air is caressing my ankles as I type.:facepalm:

I spoke to Spinnerbait Nut and to Tashasdaddy and asked why they did this. I got no response.

Any of you HVAC guys have an idea what happened???

 

[ezmobee]

Re: SBN and/or TD came to visit me last night.

Sounds like something overheated.

 

[Don S]

Re: SBN and/or TD came to visit me last night.

Sounds like it froze up (Frosted up coils) blocking the path of the air across the coils. When you shut it off, it had a chance to melt.

 

[badkins50]

Re: SBN and/or TD came to visit me last night.

Sounds like it froze up (Frosted up coils) blocking the path of the air across the coils. When you shut it off, it had a chance to melt.

thats happened to mine last year when the wife went over to the termostat and cranked the ac down to 68 degrees. It got so cold the coils froze. A real good friend (and HVAC guy) came over and turned the furnace on - on a 90 degree day. Good luck

 

[jlinder]

Re: SBN and/or TD came to visit me last night.

Another vote for frost on the coils. I have seen the coils freeze and block the air as a common problem, especially when the humidity is high and the dew point is up there. The only thing you can do is to shut it down and wait until it clears. Once it starts to clear and some air starts to move you turn off the cooling and leave the fan on to move air past the coils.

Take a look at your filter and vents. If the filter is clogged it will reduce air flow and make the system more prone to this happening.

 

[QC]

Re: SBN and/or TD came to visit me last night.

Personally, I don't think it was Spinner or TD, but I am pretty confident it was Spinner's little buddies . . .

 

[RogersJetboat454]

Re: SBN and/or TD came to visit me last night.

Another vote for frozen coils, but a question to the residential HVAC guys;

I know most automotive A/C units and even residential window units have a thermo sensor attached to the evaporator to prevent the A/C from getting too cold, and icing the evaporator over (kicks the A/C off when the evaporator gets too cold). Is this not the case with a residential central air unit? If residential central air does have this type of system, and it is determined that an iced evaporator caused JB's problems , I would assume a bad thermo sensor or controls is a possible cause.

 

[QC]

Re: SBN and/or TD came to visit me last night.

I am no expert, but in the case of Central Air what does frozen coils have to do with air flow out of the various ducts? Am I missing something or is my experience with frozen coils (no cooling but plenty of airlfow) different than the rest of the world's?

 

[RogersJetboat454]

Re: SBN and/or TD came to visit me last night.

I am no expert, but in the case of Central Air what does frozen coils have to do with air flow out of the various ducts? Am I missing something or is my experience with frozen coils (no cooling but plenty of airlfow) different than the rest of the world's?

Well perhaps I'm talking out of my hat, because I'm not very experienced with central air (may work differently), but from a stand point of how most A/C units work, the air has to pass through the evaporator (may be referred to as coils) in order to be cooled. If the evaporator freezes over solid from condensation, it will block the air flow through the evaporator. That would be akin to a automotive radiator having its fins plugged up with mud, and stopping the air flow from cooling the coolant.

 

[ezmobee]

Re: SBN and/or TD came to visit me last night.

I don't think this thread title is the best for getting the HVAC tech to check in on it......(as entertaining as it is)

 

[Bob_VT]

Re: SBN and/or TD came to visit me last night.

Embrace the visit....... I bet it was both SBN and TD

 

[JRJ]

Re: SBN and/or TD came to visit me last night.

Time to lay in a supply of their favorite beverages, just to see if they disappear

 

[Fireman431]

Re: SBN and/or TD came to visit me last night.

Having a bit of experience with household HVAC, it certainly sounds like your airhandler coils icing over. This will block airflow and although a bit is getting by, you'll never notice it after it gets into the ductwork.

Some of the most common causes of icing are:

a) dirty/blocked filter. Clean or replace as necesary.
b) dirty/blocked compressor coils. take the top off of the unit and clean from the back side with a garden hose. This is common if the compressor is near a dryer vent.
c) low freon pressure. If the other two don't fix the problem, have the pressure checked. This is probably not your problem as you said it was blowing cold after you turned it back on.

Best of luck.

 

[JB]

Re: SBN and/or TD came to visit me last night.

Well, I think most of you gents hit it on the head. I never had that happen on a central air unit.

It stopped making air again after about 2 hours. I turned off the compressor and left the blower going and in about 15 minutes I had airflow again.

Called the HVAC dude who confirmed your diagnoses and will be here next week to troubleshoot, clean everything up and recharge if needed. Except for filter changes (really poor filters are the only thing I can get to fit) it has not been serviced in 12 years. It has had 2 new compressors, but they didn't mess with the indoor parts.

SBN and TD drank all my beer and left.

Thanks for the advice, guys. I really was spooked.

 

[badkins50]

Re: SBN and/or TD came to visit me last night.

Time to lay in a supply of their favorite beverages, just to see if they disappear

If you build it - they will come.

 

[lncoop]

Re: SBN and/or TD came to visit me last night.

JB, have you tried the cut to fit style, like the hog hair for instance? The big orange supply house finally started carrying my size, but for several years I relied on those and had pretty good luck with them.

 

[hrdwrkingacguy]

Re: SBN and/or TD came to visit me last night.

Air conditioners freeze up the indoor coil in cooling for one of two reasons only...Lack of heat transfer and refrigerant issues...

Think of it as the opposite of losing a fan belt or fan motor on your car...it can't maintain heat rejection, so it overheats...

so the causes of a fan to be running with no airflow are loose/broken blower wheel, frozen coil, dirty filter, dirty coil, broken duct work...

It has not been serviced in 12 years. It has had 2 new compressors, but they didn't mess with the indoor parts.

This is a very interesting thing that we try to get customers to tell us...99.9% of compressor failures are do to external issues...The system needs to return the right temperature refrigerant to the compressor suction line to work properly but also to cool thing windings...Liquid restrictions overheat winding and cause burnout's which create acid with lead to future problems....Running with dirty filters causes low suction superheat which floods the compressor(Vapor pump) with liquid and breaks valves and bends scrolls...Bad outdoor fan motors or dirty outdoor coils raise system pressures and burn up oil and causes carbon to build up inside the system causing restrictions and compressor failures...

Moral of the story is if a system had compressors fail twice they(most likely) didn't fix the cause and it will happen again...Proper clean up, finding the root of the problem(almost always metering device failure), and doing the right repairs are the only way to not have expensive problems down the road...

 

[roscoe]

Re: SBN and/or TD came to visit me last night.

Sounds like you got a hot dog wrapper or a windshield tear-off stuck to your air intake.

The left turners are racing in your area this weekend.

 

[jlinder]

Re: SBN and/or TD came to visit me last night.

Called the HVAC dude who confirmed your diagnoses and will be here next week to troubleshoot, clean everything up and recharge if needed. Except for filter changes (really poor filters are the only thing I can get to fit) it has not been serviced in 12 years. It has had 2 new compressors, but they didn't mess with the indoor parts.

Might want to try looking on the internet for the filter you need, you might get lucky. If not it might be worth it to have your HVAC guy look at putting in a good filter. Might save you a bunch in the long run. I have one of the April Aire (spelling?) filters that work pretty well.

Also look at the internal coils. They might be dirty and adding to the problem.

Another simple thing to look at is the fan in the furnace. I have had one where the cage fan blades had started to cake with dirt reducing the efficiency. Easy but tedious to clean.

 

[JB]

Re: SBN and/or TD came to visit me last night.

HVAC dude added 1.5lb of freon. Seems okay now. He said to buy an oversize pleated filter and cut it to fit.

Thanks for the advice and encouragement, gents.