On Oct 27, 1:19*pm, Doug McLaren wrote:
So, last week, we found that the air conditioner wasn't working. *The
inside blower was working, but it was blowing room-temperature air.

I tracked the problem down to the big (50 A) circuit breaker being
blown. *I switched it back, and it immediately blew again (well, in
about a second) and I heard a noise from the outside A/C unit (on the
other side of the house, so I couldn't see it.)

So I got my wife to do the circuit breaker again while I was watching
the outside unit. *The motor glowed or sparked or something -- light
came out. *I wasn't that close, so I'm not sure exactly which. *I'm
also note sure what the fan did.

It was raining, so I left things off, went inside.

I came back out the next day, sunny skies, and tried it again, this
time being close to the unit so I could see exactly what happened.
And it started up fine, no problems. *Turning it off again, I saw that
the fan spun pretty freely -- it doesn't seem to have problems with
the bearings (as I've had in other appliances.)

So now it seems fine. *But I'm reluctant to actually turn it on. *Yes,
the circuit breakers will protect me from future problems, but I don't
like relying on it.

I'm not much of a handyman, but I could replace the motor and/or
condensor easily enough -- it's easily accessible. *And of course I'll
have everything off and the circuit breaker off if I try. *This is
about 10 years old, and living in Texas, it gets a lot of use.

But should I? *Or should I just check that water isn't getting in
somewhere?

--
Doug McLaren,

If it coughs when raining and works when dry, I would definitely
suspect a water intrusion issue. However you may want to have an HVAC
guy look at it anyway - a 50A, 240VAC circuit can knock you back a bit
if you're not careful. Depends on your comfort level working with
this stuff.

nate