Just got home from a work trip to find my shop at 90 instead of 76. Outside unit is froze up, so 90% chance I’m low on refrigerant. Before I call “the man”, wanted to see if anyone here services the area.

TL heating and air Celina TX

Tim is the best your gonna get up here.

That sucks. I’m not sure he does residential but Lakota does HVAC stuff in this area.

Mine locked up on me earlier this year. Ended up being the bolts that hold the fan and motor up had vibrated out and the fan fell against the shroud and locked up and burnt the motor up. Cost $750 for replacement. Was glad to pay it lol.

When you say that the outside unit is froze up, that is probably not refrigerant. Could be your capacitor, fan blower, or dirty air filters. It also can be a faulty control panel, which is what happened to me last week.

I think you’re onto something Gringo. I’ve had time to screw with it and the air handler isn’t turning on which is causing the frozen outside unit.

I have extra capacitors for the compressor but not for the air handler, so could be that or control board.

I’ll give someone in the area, maybe Tim, a call if no one on here covers it

If the blower is not running that is a air flow problem which caused the unit to freeze up. The compressor was still moving the refrigerant through the system but no air flow across the evaporator coil. The air handler/furnace needs to be turned off and if you have a volt meter that reads MFD’s you can check the capacitor more than likely a 5 to 10 MFD cap. Also with the power to the unit turned off you can see if you can move the blower wheel or if it’s locked up.

I just walked in the house from working out in East Texas. On a side note it was nice working in 70° to 80° weather today.

John was kind enough to text me, and as I told him, I couldn’t really mess with it till after bedtime since we have an extra 3 kids with us this weekend (6 kids 7 and under). Luckily, this AC is just for my shop!

Looks like it’s a bad capacitor in the air handler after looking at with a meter. Unfortunately, all my spares are 60 or 70 mfd and this one is a 20-5.

I’d be happy to pay/trade one of my spares if anyone has one. If not, I’ll try my luck at calling Tim and seeing if he will just sell me one with enough profit in it for him

Never mind, got some on Amazon that deliver Sunday

Let us know how it turns out, bad capacitor is obviously the best case scenario here.

Is it a 20 + 5 or does it say 20 +/- 5%? Can you post a picture of the info on the capacitor and the top of it where the wires connect?

Also leave the unit off until this is repaired so the unit doesn’t keep running and freeze up.

https://www.casserviceshvac.com/


Long time friend of mine

20 +/-5%. Was lazy typing on the phone



Love being prepared while unprepared

Ok that’s a 20 MFD that can be + or - 5% and still be considered good. It’s different from the ones you show the boxes of.

The capacitors that say + will have two different readings if you go between the terminals and common terminal on the top of the capacitor. On the top of those one terminal will have HERM another on FAN and the last C if you go between the HERM and C terminals you should read the higher number on the capacitor and between FAN and C the lower number. Those are called a dual capacitor as they are supporting two motors the condenser fan motor and the compressor motor with the power number being for the condenser fan and the higher for the compressor.

Yep, I had spares for outside but not inside since I’ve only had the outside ones go bad before. I’ll be fixing that shortcoming tomorrow.

Good knowledge you’re sharing for the group!

New cap for the air handler did the trick. Up and running for $10. Unfortunately the size wasn’t the same as the last so I have it sitting on the bottom of the air handler until I get on that will fit in the mount.

That new cap is probably a higher-voltage rating one, hence the bigger size.
I'd keep the bigger cap, and buy ya a roll of 'Galvanized Pipe Hanger Strap' to easily make a new 'mount'.

Nope, same 20 +/- 5% cap that was in there, just not the same size. I got two more on the way now that it's up and running again. Also saw the blind spot in my thinking on being prepared for the outside caps and not for the inside, so I am gonna go take my other two air handlers apart when it gets cooler out and get some spares for those

AC wizards, I'm back. I originally posted on July 22nd that my AC was out when I got back from a trip. I got a new capacitor for the air handler and all was well again. That capacitor didn't fit in the compression fitting against the squirrel cage, so I had ordered some more that would fit.

About 2 weeks back, I noticed that my air handler wasn't running again. I chalked it up to a cheap and/or faulty capacitor and replaced it with one of the new ones I had ordered. Well, I just had it happen again today with the new one. Basically, I'm getting 2 weeks out of a capacitor and I'm not sure why.

Is it bad luck on capacitors? I don't think so, but maybe. If it were a short, I would think it would trip a breaker instead. Right now, I'm thinking that my control board is going out, a relay is bad, or somehow voltage/amperage is out of whack but wanted to get other folks thoughts on it.

Preface. I have no idea what I’m talking about.

But, a buddy did switch out my breaker one time he fixed my AC. Said it was going bad.

Yep sounds like something is taking out those capacitors. Most likely electrical but I don't know how to go about diagnosing it without putting hands on it. May be time to call the man. Anything else weird going on electrically like light bulbs going out or electronics quitting unexpectedly?

Nope which is why I'm prioritizing the control board or a relay that isn't kicking off fast enough into the start cycle

Poltergeist

Ps.......25k will solve the problem

some units dont start the indoor blower at the same time as the outdoor. could be that relay or board flaking out. are you confirming these caps are bad or just throwing in new ones? mite be time to call the man, but if its working when he is there its gonna be hard to diagnose unless you get lucky and have a guy that has seen similar issues with your brand of unit. ya need a meter and knowledge of how to use said meter to check it properly. good luck!