On Sun, 06 May 2007 03:47:36 GMT, "Steve Latham"
wrote:


Maybe the fan has just been running (cycling) but the A/C itself was only
turning on when it tripped - and just that fan air was enough to cool the
house down on those colder nights. But either way, if the fan is coming
n - OK, it' just turned off again - automatically when the thermostat is in
the Off position, something's obviously funky.

Should I flip the circuit breaker?

That will certainly turn it off. Probably.

Fortunately it's supposed to be 70s in
the days, and not below 50 at night the next for as far as my 10 day
forecast shows me.

Damn. It just came on again. The Tstat has been on Heat, Auto, and the lever
all the way back to 50 degrees this whole time (and the Thermometer reads
71-72 in the house).

Could it be the thermostat? I've been pondering getting a digital anyway.

Yes, it could be, but before just replacing parts that aren't known to
be bad, I'd test to see if it the thermostat. The simplest test would
be to disconect the thermostat. While you are doing that, I'd look
close to make sure that no two wires that go to the tstat are
touching. The metal parts, and if insulated parts are touching, I'd
look closely to see if maybe the insulation has a hole letting one
wire touch the other. I'd look at the tstat end and the furnace end,
if you can. If the right two wires are touching, the AC will run, as
if the thermostat told it to.

Then note which color wires are connected to which screws on the tstat
and then disconnect it. If the ac doesn't go on, (and you've set the
breaker is back on)it might well be the tstat which is the problem.
Worth buying a new one, but don't throw away your old one until the
new one actually fixes the problem. Even then you can give it to a
neighbor kid and let him take it apart. (I guess these days you
should warn him about the mercury.)

If the new one doesn't fix the problem, you might be able to return it
and reinstall the first one, or at the very least, the one you removed
is probably good and you can save it as a spare, or give it to
someone. I'm going to use my old thermostat on a temp-zone for my
burglar alarm, so that if I go away in the winter, the alarm will
notify the monitoring company if the house temp goes too low. I'm
sure it has other uses too.

Or is this something to get the HVAC guy in for? It really ****es me off

Not yet. See what results you get from above. (I mean from the text
above, not from Heaven.)

that our heater had to have a service call the first year we owned the house
and we've already had to buy a new AC 8 years in. Now here's another problem
with an AC that's 1-2 years old. I'm sure I'll need shingles on the roof
next.

Ok, it's off now and I flipped the switch to off. Let's see if it actually
stays off.

Any help on this is much appreciated,

Thanks,
Steve