In ,
chaniarts typed:
Jo wrote:
Hello,

The central A/C and heat in my house aren't working
properly and I need to figure out why. All the equipment
(or whatever you want to call it) is about 24 years old.

The problem started about a month ago when the heat was
on. I noticed that hardly any air was blowing out of the
vents and the air that was blowing out was cool, not
warm. Also, the lights in different rooms would dim
every 4 minutes or so. I turned off the heat at this
point and notified the owners of the house who happen to
be my parents. I turned on the A/C this morning and the same thing is
happening. The lights in different rooms dim every 4
minutes or so and hardly any air is blowing out of the
vents. The fan is set to "auto" but everything has been
running nonstop since I turned it on over 4 hrs ago,
which is not normal. I think it's running nonstop
because the house temperature hasn't reached the
temperature I set the thermostat to. At this rate, it
never will because it's hardly blowing out any air. My father says he
put in a new filter, but this was
after the problem started a month ago. He mentioned that
the unit might need more Freon, but I think he checked
that out because he came back saying he doesn't know
what the problem is. He mentioned something about
getting someone to check the pressure (whatever that
means), but knowing him this could take weeks and I'm
burning up. Does anyone have an any idea as to what might be wrong?
And since the lights keep dimming, will that harm any of
my electronic equipment, like my computer?


Jo

did the lights also dim before there was a perceived
problem? it could something like a siezed fan motor. the
motor attempts to kick on, drawing lots of startup power,
causing the dimming. the motor then overheats and the
thermal fuse shuts it off. when it cools, the process
repeats.
yes, the dimming could cause problems with your
electronics. they don't like frequent brownouts.

they don't like frequent LONG AND SUSTAINED brownouts. A couple seconds or
so won't bother much of anything. Worst case, some of it might turn OFF if
it was ON. From the sound of it, if it was going to bother anything you
would already know that because it would have happened. A sustained brownout
might overheat motors trying to start/run and some electronic things that
are turned on might turn off when it hits, but that's about it.

HTH,

Twayne`