Air Conditioning

We have been super busy trying to get all of our stuff done and didn't make it on the computer last night. Since I am at work I figured I would predate the blog and write a little about the air conditioning system. As far as we know there was a Trane air conditioning system install in the house about 18 years ago. We knew that it had not been run in at least 5 years. I tried to turn it on, and only the blower fan turned on. So we had air coming out of the vents, but it was not cold. The unit outside made no indication that it was alive at all.

I had no idea what I was doing so I went to get some advice from my friend at work that does this for a living (thanks Shane). I figure I will start with the a very basic breakdown of a home AC system. There are 3 parts to it. First we have the unit in the basement that is where the evaporator is and the blower motor that blows air out of all of the vents in the house. Second we have the condencer unit that sits outside. That is the unit that buzzes all of the time and has a big fan in it. That is also the unit were the compressor lives. The Third part of the system is the thermostat that lives on a wall in the house that tells the unit what you want it to do. (where you set the temrature you want the house to be.

Since the unit outside showed no signed of life I was told to test the voltage at the unit. You do this will a multimeter. It's a little handheld device that tells you how much power you have at a certain point. I tested the big wires and it was 120 volts, right where it should be. So I then knew that the unit was getting power and that wasn't the problem.

Next, was the test to see if the wires that tell the outside unit to turn on were working. The unit expects to see 24 volts ac. On the unit outside there is an electromagnetic switch that closes when it gets 24 volts ac. That sounds very complicated but in reality it's just 2 magnets that have a little spring between them. When you give power to that magnets they become stronger and overpower the spring between them and touch each other. That alows power to pass between them.
I checked the wires going to the magnets however I did not have 24 volts ac. So either the wires are broken or the device sending the power is broken. I then gave a light tug on the wires and one came right through the side of the house. Well that explains that, the signal wire that tells the unit to turn on was cut/broken. Since it doesn't cary much voltage I used some 14 gauge wire and wire nuts to repair the break.

I then went inside and and flipped the switch and the unit outside turned on! The only problem was still no cold air. I had no idea what to do so I called Shane and he came to look at it. He told me it was old and that fixing it was at my own risk. I explained to him that I do everything the hard way and was going to attempet to fix it one way or another. I had him charge the system. In in the process of putting the last screw in we nicked a power wire and fireworks went off inside the power box in the unit. I thought to myself, that's not good. Oh wait, I said that outloud with a few other 4 letter words. We were able to fix the wire, just make sure they are out of the way when you put the screws back in.

When we went to test the unit the fan was spinning backwards ( still talking about the outside unit). Shane said that can't happen, but oh no... it was happening. He suggested getting a new start up capacitor for the fan as the one that was in there was all bubbled out. I took the old one out and went down to CC Dickson in charlotte and for 10$ I had a new capacitor 440 volt instead of 370 volt, but there was no problem with that. The new capacitor was about 1/3 the size of the old one, but seemed to work great. I plugged it in and the fan started up in the right direction and spun faster then ever! There was now cold air blowing out of the vents! I went back to work and came home at the end of the day to find no more cold air blowing.

The compressor was hardly running. It would start and then shut right off. I looked in the unit and saw another capacitor that was bubbled out and the wires went to the compressor. Great! I headed back to CC dickson with my compressor capacitor and for $11 I was on my way. I plugged that one in and the compressor then turned on and stayed running. Cold air again!!!
I came home from work that day expecting to find a cool house, but it was hot. I was not happy. This time there wasn't any air shooting out of any vents and the outside unit was off. I went out to the circuit breaker box and found that it had blown. Great, a short somewhere....

To make a long story short I found that there was a mini sump pump in the basement that was connected to the evaporator unit. It was full to the brim with water and was clearly not pumping water out like it should. I dumped out the water and let the unit drain on the ground. That water then flows into the main sump pump hole in the basement floor. We have not had a problem since. Speaking of which, I need to fix that....
The Prissy Girls Husband, Eamonn