air conditioner

[Franck]

I gave my little brother an air conditioner that is only a year old to put in his apartment. He said that he put it in his bedroom and plugged it in. He turned the air conditioner on to “turbo” cool and left it on all night. When he woke up, the next morning it was making a running noise with hardly any air coming out (not cold air) and was also making an intermittent clicking noise. He said this is exactly what happened with the previous air conditioner that he had in his bedroom window. What could be wrong with the air conditioner?

[Tom C]

check the voltage at the outlet when the A.C. tries to kick on. If the voltage drops more than ten percent, i.e. lower than 108 vac on a 12o volt circuit or 216 vac on a 240 volt circuit, the problem is with your wiring.

I have run into this several times. One time it tripped the circuit breaker, the other times the compressor wouldn’t start, overheated & kicked out on the overload, that could be the clicking you are hearing.

If same problem occurs with two different units, I would first suspect the household wiring isn’t sufficient to carry the required amp draw.

Put a meter in the outlet and check voltage when compressor tries to kick in, if below the limit call an electrician…..

[Dan O.]

** What could be wrong with the air conditioner? **

Chances are, nothing at all.

** left it on all night. When he woke up, the next morning it was making a running noise with hardly any air coming out **

What usually happens when running a window air conditioner at night is that the inside OR outside air temperature drops below 70°F which causes the front evaporator (cooling) coil to frost up instead of just sweat like it should. Once totally frosted, no air movement can take place through it.

Have him remove the front grill and look at the evaporator coil. If it is completely frosted over, it will have to be turned off until it fully melts before proper air flow will return. Allowing an air conditioner to run like that can damage both the fan motor and compressor.

He can try to prevent that occurrence by turning the thermostat to one of the warmest settings. At such a setting it should allow the compressor to periodically cycle off and allow any slight frost accumulation to melt before starting to cool again. If it gets really cold outside at night, running the unit on ‘fan only’ is the best thing to do.

Both you and he may find the information at the following link useful?

LINK > Home Service : Helpful Tips : Air Conditioner

** this is exactly what happened with the previous air conditioner **

Probably nothing wrong with it either.

Dan O.

http://www.Appliance411.com

The Appliance Information Site

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[Daniel E. Fall]

I can almost guarantee he froze it up. Small room, turbo cool. There is nothing wrong with the AC, but the room is damp, and the AC can’t run all the time like that very well.

I would recommend at a minimum putting a small fan in front of the evaporator, and try not to chill the room to 50 degrees. The best fan, by the way, would be an oscillating one, but any fan blowing on the front of the AC unit in the room, will reduce the TURBO FREEZE!

Dan

[TH]

Hi – I have a window air conditioner that has been working just fine… tonight though there was a very strange noise (rather like a splatter of gravel on metal). It did it again while I was standing in front of it, and droplets of something wet sprayed out of it. What is wrong?

[Author]

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