Hello

May I please ask for your help? I live in an apartment building. Last
night, I turned my air conditioner on, then I turned it off, then I
turned it off again (all within a couple of seconds).
Now half of my apartment doesn't have power - outlets are dead, light
switches don't work.
How bad is the damage - will my whole apartment have to have new wiring
installed? Or do I simply have to ask the super in my building to fix
the circuit breakers?

Thank you!!


Bill

"Bill Bauer" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hello

May I please ask for your help? I live in an apartment building. Last
night, I turned my air conditioner on, then I turned it off, then I
turned it off again (all within a couple of seconds).
Now half of my apartment doesn't have power - outlets are dead, light
switches don't work.
How bad is the damage - will my whole apartment have to have new wiring
installed? Or do I simply have to ask the super in my building to fix
the circuit breakers?

Thank you!!


Bill


Probably circuit breaker....

"Bill Bauer" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hello

May I please ask for your help? I live in an apartment building. Last
night, I turned my air conditioner on, then I turned it off, then I
turned it off again (all within a couple of seconds).
Now half of my apartment doesn't have power - outlets are dead, light
switches don't work.
How bad is the damage - will my whole apartment have to have new wiring
installed? Or do I simply have to ask the super in my building to fix
the circuit breakers?

Thank you!!

Just move out now while you can and leave no forwarding address. Forget the
security deposit, they will keep the for sure as it will cost thousands of
dollars to repair.

Seriously, all you did was trip the breaker. When you shut off the AC, give
it a few minutes to equalize the internal pressure before you start it up
again. It put a big load on the compressor motor and just tripped the
breaker taking out everything on that circuit.

As Bishoop said, probably just the circuit breaker.

The way I understand it, an ac has a very high power draw when it
first turns on. If it gets switched on/off/on rapidly, sometimes the
breaker could heat up & pop because of so much current draw in a very
short time.

That's probably a simplified answer -- I'm NOT an electrician. I was
married to one for almost 20 years, though and did a lot of
"gophering" on many projects.

Newer ac units have a delay to prevent this, or so I thought....my
central air has a delay for sure. If I turn it off and then right back
on again, the delay prevents it starting for two minutes, to allow the
breaker to cool down.




On 13 Nov 2005 11:02:32 -0800, "Bill Bauer"
wrote:

May I please ask for your help? I live in an apartment building. Last
night, I turned my air conditioner on, then I turned it off, then I
turned it off again (all within a couple of seconds).
Now half of my apartment doesn't have power - outlets are dead, light
switches don't work.
....................snip.......................

Actually the delay is not to "protect" the breaker but to protect the motor
on the compressor. If you switch it on and off and on again quickly, or the
electric supplier has an outage and there is a flutter or rapid on/off/on in
the power, it prevents the compressor from starting until the power has
stabilized for a couple or more minutes.

"LJ" wrote in message
news
As Bishoop said, probably just the circuit breaker.

The way I understand it, an ac has a very high power draw when it
first turns on. If it gets switched on/off/on rapidly, sometimes the
breaker could heat up & pop because of so much current draw in a very
short time.

That's probably a simplified answer -- I'm NOT an electrician. I was
married to one for almost 20 years, though and did a lot of
"gophering" on many projects.

Newer ac units have a delay to prevent this, or so I thought....my
central air has a delay for sure. If I turn it off and then right back
on again, the delay prevents it starting for two minutes, to allow the
breaker to cool down.




On 13 Nov 2005 11:02:32 -0800, "Bill Bauer"
wrote:

May I please ask for your help? I live in an apartment building. Last
night, I turned my air conditioner on, then I turned it off, then I
turned it off again (all within a couple of seconds).
Now half of my apartment doesn't have power - outlets are dead, light
switches don't work.
...................snip.......................

The compressor also has a thermal cutout and that usually clicks off before
tripping the breaker if the a/c is on it's own line. But if half the
building is on a single circuit, the added current would trip the breaker
first. When I lived in an apartment many years ago, I could always silence
the noisy neighbor's stereo by rapid cycling my a/c.

Bob


"EXT" etonks@sunstormADD-DOT-COM wrote in message
anews.com...
Actually the delay is not to "protect" the breaker but to protect the
motor
on the compressor. If you switch it on and off and on again quickly, or
the
electric supplier has an outage and there is a flutter or rapid on/off/on
in
the power, it prevents the compressor from starting until the power has
stabilized for a couple or more minutes.

"LJ" wrote in message
news
As Bishoop said, probably just the circuit breaker.

The way I understand it, an ac has a very high power draw when it
first turns on. If it gets switched on/off/on rapidly, sometimes the
breaker could heat up & pop because of so much current draw in a very
short time.

That's probably a simplified answer -- I'm NOT an electrician. I was
married to one for almost 20 years, though and did a lot of
"gophering" on many projects.

Newer ac units have a delay to prevent this, or so I thought....my
central air has a delay for sure. If I turn it off and then right back
on again, the delay prevents it starting for two minutes, to allow the
breaker to cool down.




On 13 Nov 2005 11:02:32 -0800, "Bill Bauer"
wrote:

May I please ask for your help? I live in an apartment building. Last
night, I turned my air conditioner on, then I turned it off, then I
turned it off again (all within a couple of seconds).
Now half of my apartment doesn't have power - outlets are dead, light
switches don't work.
...................snip.......................

Bill Bauer wrote:
Hello

May I please ask for your help? I live in an apartment building. Last
night, I turned my air conditioner on, then I turned it off, then I
turned it off again (all within a couple of seconds).
Now half of my apartment doesn't have power - outlets are dead, light
switches don't work.
How bad is the damage - will my whole apartment have to have new wiring
installed? Or do I simply have to ask the super in my building to fix
the circuit breakers?

Thank you!!


Bill


Flip the circuit breakers or have the super do it,
and don't do that it gain. The air conditioner
builds up pressure and when you flipped it off and
the flipped back on it tried to start before the
pressure leaked down. So you essentially get a
locked rotor start, which means the motor drew a
lot of amps. Good way to ruin the compressor
motor. Say thanks for having a breaker kick out
immediately.

Jeepers.
All that happens is when you start the ac the first time, the
compressor runs and builds up a good pressure inside. When the
ac turns off, that pressure slowly drops.
The motor can start the first time because it's got a low
pressure to work against, and starts normally. IF it's turned
off, then on too quickly, before the internal compressor
pressures can equalize, or at least drop considerably, it's too
much work for the motor and the motor simply cannot turn the
compressor because of the high pressure still there.

The older air conditioners have temp relays in them that limit
how long a motor can try to start the compressor. When it gets
hot enough, it opens and stops the motor from working. When it
cools, the motor starts again, and so on until the motor is able
to start. You can actually hear it clicking inside most air
conditioners when it turns on and off.
They are designed, by UL/CSA ETL etc requirements to work that
way. It's very seldom the motor or anything else is damaged
unless you maybe "wear out" a circuit breaker. Typically, if the
ac is on a ckt breaker of the recommended size it will NOT pop
the breaker open; the motor will just cycle, trying to start the
compressor until it finally succeeds. That's why they always
recommend in the install instructs that the unit be on its own
electrical ckt - so it won't pop the breaker. And the breaker is
supposed to have a time-delay spec also. It's in almost all of
the manuals that come with the air conditioners.
If the rapid on/off doesn't happen, they can usually also be
run on a smaller capacity breaker, or with other things on that
ckt, but then there is a lot better chanc e of popping the
breaker.
So, what the OP described is perfectly expected operation and
NOT a sign that some super dangerous event is about to happen.
It simply indicates, as the OP said, that there is not enough
current available due to an undersized breaker or other loads, so
the breaker/fuse opens.
The newer units may well have time delays built into them that
control that, and I know a few I've read about also depressurize
the compressor quickly if it stops running. The latter seems to
be more prevalent in this area. I've never noticed one with a two
minute or whatever delay between starts but i don't look for them
either.
Starting and running currents are on every nameplate I've ever
looked at on any air conditioner. So it's not really a big
mystery for those who bother to look.

HTH,
Pop




"Bill Bauer" wrote in message
oups.com...
: Hello
:
: May I please ask for your help? I live in an apartment
building. Last
: night, I turned my air conditioner on, then I turned it off,
then I
: turned it off again (all within a couple of seconds).
: Now half of my apartment doesn't have power - outlets are dead,
light
: switches don't work.
: How bad is the damage - will my whole apartment have to have
new wiring
: installed? Or do I simply have to ask the super in my building
to fix
: the circuit breakers?
:
: Thank you!!
:
:
: Bill
: