Bad night for my air conditioner...

[dbhost]

My wife and I were getting ready for bed last night, when we saw a series of blue flashes come from the back yard around where the air conditioner is. It was too dark to even consider going out to look at it, it was obvious something major was wrong with the AC, so I went ahead and threw the breaker for it off, and had to RAPIDLY install my little window unit in the master suite (nobody else in the house by my wife and I) in the only window that would take it, the master bath. To get the air moving, and keep it moving I had to use 2 box fans and a ceiling fan, at high speed, all night long...

First thing this morning I went out to take a look. Took the service panel off the AC and found that where the whip connects, the neutral and ground wires were completely disconnected, it looks like the neutral has been vibrating back and forth for quite some time, arcing, and pretty much destroying the plastic connector block / bus thing a ma jig (sorry I am no electrician) pretty much destroying it...

A quick call to the electrician that is going to be running the sub panel, and no problem. We will be meeting up after work tonight, parts in hand, ready to replace the bad block, and make the connections PROPERLY...

Sadly, I no longer have the invoice from the incompetent nincompoops that installed the AC 9 years ago, but I have to say, this was done by a contractor for First American Home Warranty. I have NOTHING good to say about the warranty company, or their idiot contractors.

[tommyt654]

Sorry to hear that especially as hot as its been,Glad you had a spare window unit to get you guys thru.

[cabinetman]

What a PITA that had to be. Years ago, I had a short in one of my shops. I had an electrician friend take a look and he discovered wires in conduit that had been "vibrating" long enough to wear off the insulation.

.

[dbhost]

Had I not had the window unit, LOML and I would have had to go to Kemah to get a hotel room for the night. Hard to sleep when it's 90 deg 90% RH in the house...

Sure be glad when this is fixed though...

[cabinetman]

Had I not had the window unit, LOML and I would have had to go to Kemah to get a hotel room for the night. Hard to sleep when it's 90 deg 90% RH in the house...

Same here. I tell my wife..."Welcome to the Congo".

.

[leehljp]

I had a similar experience three weeks ago. LOML and I had been to visit a daughter for 4 days and upon our return, arriving late in the afternoon of a 100+ day, the house was HOT - 95+° inside. We had left the AC on 85°. The circuit breaker had tripped. Upon re-setting the circuit breaker, I began to check to see if I could figure out what tripped the circuit breakers, since I haven't had this problem before. While checking the outside unit I heard fine sparking (not loud pops) and then noticed sparks on occasion from the inside of the unit.

I cut the circuit breaker off and checked closer to the condensor unit. A hot wire had vibrated enough to wear through and was arcing. I happened to have some wire of the same guage, color and quality and replaced a three foot section from the relay to the fan motor. I also taped up the other wires very good and added some rubber grommets at different places just as insulators for the vibration.

This unit is 20 years old and still working well except for that. I did have to have an air conditioner fellow switch out a part 6 years ago, but it wasn't in the area of the wire vibration.

The unit started cooling immediately but the house had apparently been without the AC since we left. The furniture, walls, floor and ceiling just radiated the heat. It took about 8 hours for the house to finally stabilize its temp. While we had cool air blowing, everything just seemed to radiate the heat off as we walked by or sat or laid down.

[dbhost]

Yeah, the problem is at the condenser end of things. It was replaced in 2003 or 2004. The Evaporator is still original to the house (1984) and is in shockingly good condition.

The wiring connections that are there are scary...

The ground wire on the unit was stripped back less than 1/4", and there are no marks in the jacket to indicate that it was ever bit into by a wire nut. It was just laying loose in the service panel.

The screw for the neutral looks like it was all the way out, hard to tell because a lot of the plastic is melted. But yeah it looks like then just shoved the wire in there, didn't even bother creating a hook of wire to go around the screw, or tightening the screw down. The hots appear to be just short ends shoved in, the screws are NOT tight.

I can't prove this was not done correctly during installation, but I find it HIGHLY unlikely that the wire un-hooked its ends, and unscrewed itself...

I don't recall the name of the contractor or I would be spreading it ALL over the internet warning people not to use these morons, but I do recall when the guy was there, I was FAR less than impressed with the quality of the workman that they sent, let alone the workmanship... I think this guy hangs out with the likes of Tommy Chong and Willie Nelson if you catch my drift...

I am a bit concerned about overcoming the thermal load in the house, but generally 8 hours is a bit excessive. If I can get the thing back up and working by 7:00, I am certain I can get the house down in the low 70s in about 2 or 3 hours...

[tommyt654]

Should have taken that bong out of his hands while he was working,lol

[dbhost]

I have some screaming and kicking to do... Just heard back from the electrician / AC guy... Looks like the compressor dead shorted to... And I have an OLD R22 system... Son of a (expletive deleted...).

[dbhost]

The electrician found and fixed the short. The ac is working great.

[JimD]

I'm glad it was only electrical. When we moved to SC I was surprised how they do the HVAC. In Kansas, and Nebraska and Pennsylvania our house had a furnace with AC in the basement that cooled the whole house. In SC, you get a HVAC unit per floor. The only ducts they know how to run are the flexible lines. An advantage of this system is that you have to lose two units to completely lose AC, however.

This spring my 12 year old upper unit, which had always been dependable, wouldn't come on. Fortunately the new lower unit was functioning well. It was still cool at night so I opened the house up at night and when that didn't work, I slept in the basement bedroom, cooled by the lower unit. Then it got hot and I took the time to find a new AC guy and get the upper unit fixed. New AC guy was great and the fix was just the "contactor" - relay.

Jim

[gsmittle]

The electrician found and fixed the short. The ac is working great.

Phew! WAY too dang hot to do without AC for very long.

g.

[dbhost]

It's run through at least 4 cycles so far. Right now it's 97 deg outside, 71 deg in the house. I wanted it cool today. (my program runs it up to 75 during the week)...

When I was younger, I never ran the AC lower than 77... Getting older is expensive!

[dbhost]

Still crankin' out ice cold air. Looks like we are good to go! Dodged a huge bullet there...