Saturday, my HVAC went belly-up.

The outside compressor would not start in the evening. Even the Fan
mode would not run by itself. Turn the entire unit off after checking
breaker, for ice and dripping from the condensate lines. I left it off
all night until early sunrise. Turned it on and the condenser came
on, the attic blower came on and in just a few minutes it failed
again. Won't start now.

Single story, 1800 sf home, Mojave Desert.. 110° F this week, HOT!

Would this be a start capacitor on the condenser/compressor?

I have a _Comfort Representative_ coming in a few hours. I may replace
the entire unit, compressor and furnace/air blower. Go from 10 SEER to
what ever?

I'm comfortable replacing the capacitor and have the tools and will be
cautious, power off, etc. I don't have a VOM but can get one.

Does this act like a start capacitor? The unit is 13 years of age.

Oren wrote the following:
Saturday, my HVAC went belly-up.

The outside compressor would not start in the evening. Even the Fan
mode would not run by itself. Turn the entire unit off after checking
breaker, for ice and dripping from the condensate lines. I left it off
all night until early sunrise. Turned it on and the condenser came
on, the attic blower came on and in just a few minutes it failed
again. Won't start now.

Single story, 1800 sf home, Mojave Desert.. 110° F this week, HOT!

Would this be a start capacitor on the condenser/compressor?

I have a _Comfort Representative_ coming in a few hours. I may replace
the entire unit, compressor and furnace/air blower. Go from 10 SEER to
what ever?

I'm comfortable replacing the capacitor and have the tools and will be
cautious, power off, etc. I don't have a VOM but can get one.

Does this act like a start capacitor? The unit is 13 years of age.


I had a similar situation a few weeks ago. It turned out that the
thermostat was bad. I though that it was dead batteries, but it did the
same with new batteries. Start and then stop. I think that it had
something to do with the contacts between the unit and the base. A new
thermostat fixed the problem.

--

Bill
In Hamptonburgh, NY
In the original Orange County. Est. 1683
To email, remove the double zeroes after @

On Sun, 25 Jul 2010 18:47:57 -0400, willshak
wrote:

Oren wrote the following:
Saturday, my HVAC went belly-up.

The outside compressor would not start in the evening. Even the Fan
mode would not run by itself. Turn the entire unit off after checking
breaker, for ice and dripping from the condensate lines. I left it off
all night until early sunrise. Turned it on and the condenser came
on, the attic blower came on and in just a few minutes it failed
again. Won't start now.

Single story, 1800 sf home, Mojave Desert.. 110° F this week, HOT!

Would this be a start capacitor on the condenser/compressor?

I have a _Comfort Representative_ coming in a few hours. I may replace
the entire unit, compressor and furnace/air blower. Go from 10 SEER to
what ever?

I'm comfortable replacing the capacitor and have the tools and will be
cautious, power off, etc. I don't have a VOM but can get one.

Does this act like a start capacitor? The unit is 13 years of age.


I had a similar situation a few weeks ago. It turned out that the
thermostat was bad. I though that it was dead batteries, but it did the
same with new batteries. Start and then stop. I think that it had
something to do with the contacts between the unit and the base. A new
thermostat fixed the problem.

Good point, I did change batteries last night, and reset the T-stat
(digital) to default, but at daylight the HVAC fired up and died
right away. The T-stat is acting (working) as it has for years. I
won't rule it out though. It does seem to work.

Glad I have a pool right now it is 109° F.

Thanks.

Time to get the VOM and the guy who owns the VOM. Go over everything,
looking for power, etc. I don't have enough information to even make a
guess.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"Oren" wrote in message
...
Saturday, my HVAC went belly-up.

The outside compressor would not start in the evening. Even the Fan
mode would not run by itself. Turn the entire unit off after checking
breaker, for ice and dripping from the condensate lines. I left it off
all night until early sunrise. Turned it on and the condenser came
on, the attic blower came on and in just a few minutes it failed
again. Won't start now.

Single story, 1800 sf home, Mojave Desert.. 110° F this week, HOT!

Would this be a start capacitor on the condenser/compressor?

I have a _Comfort Representative_ coming in a few hours. I may replace
the entire unit, compressor and furnace/air blower. Go from 10 SEER to
what ever?

I'm comfortable replacing the capacitor and have the tools and will be
cautious, power off, etc. I don't have a VOM but can get one.

Does this act like a start capacitor? The unit is 13 years of age.

"Oren" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 25 Jul 2010 18:47:57 -0400, willshak
wrote:

Oren wrote the following:
Saturday, my HVAC went belly-up.

The outside compressor would not start in the evening. Even the Fan
mode would not run by itself. Turn the entire unit off after checking
breaker, for ice and dripping from the condensate lines. I left it off
all night until early sunrise. Turned it on and the condenser came
on, the attic blower came on and in just a few minutes it failed
again. Won't start now.

Single story, 1800 sf home, Mojave Desert.. 110° F this week, HOT!

Would this be a start capacitor on the condenser/compressor?

I have a _Comfort Representative_ coming in a few hours. I may replace
the entire unit, compressor and furnace/air blower. Go from 10 SEER to
what ever?

I'm comfortable replacing the capacitor and have the tools and will be
cautious, power off, etc. I don't have a VOM but can get one.

Does this act like a start capacitor? The unit is 13 years of age.


I had a similar situation a few weeks ago. It turned out that the
thermostat was bad. I though that it was dead batteries, but it did the
same with new batteries. Start and then stop. I think that it had
something to do with the contacts between the unit and the base. A new
thermostat fixed the problem.

Good point, I did change batteries last night, and reset the T-stat
(digital) to default, but at daylight the HVAC fired up and died
right away. The T-stat is acting (working) as it has for years. I
won't rule it out though. It does seem to work.

Glad I have a pool right now it is 109° F.

Thanks.

Jumper the connections on the thermostat that are for cool. If that starts
it you have an intermittent contacts on thermostat. WW

Oren wrote:
Saturday, my HVAC went belly-up.

The outside compressor would not start in the evening. Even the Fan
mode would not run by itself. Turn the entire unit off after checking
breaker, for ice and dripping from the condensate lines. I left it off
all night until early sunrise. Turned it on and the condenser came
on, the attic blower came on and in just a few minutes it failed
again. Won't start now.

Single story, 1800 sf home, Mojave Desert.. 110° F this week, HOT!

Would this be a start capacitor on the condenser/compressor?

I have a _Comfort Representative_ coming in a few hours. I may replace
the entire unit, compressor and furnace/air blower. Go from 10 SEER to
what ever?

I'm comfortable replacing the capacitor and have the tools and will be
cautious, power off, etc. I don't have a VOM but can get one.

Does this act like a start capacitor? The unit is 13 years of age.

Could be - it's cheap enough to try. A capacitor - start or run or combo -
should cost, oh, five bucks.

Don't let them talk you into a new compressor. Usually, if it runs at all,
it can run forever. Further, I suspect that the replacement of any other
part is more economical than a new unit.

On Jul 25, 6:12*pm, Oren wrote:
Saturday, my HVAC went belly-up.

The outside compressor would not start in the evening. Even the Fan
mode would not run by itself. *Turn the entire unit off after checking
breaker, for ice and dripping from the condensate lines. I left it off
all night until early sunrise. *Turned it on and the condenser came
on, the attic blower came on and in just a few minutes it failed
again. Won't start now.

Single story, 1800 sf home, Mojave Desert.. 110° F this week, HOT!

Would this be a start capacitor on the condenser/compressor?

I have a _Comfort Representative_ coming in a few hours. I may replace
the entire unit, compressor and furnace/air blower. Go from 10 SEER to
what ever?

I'm comfortable replacing the capacitor and have the tools and will be
cautious, power off, etc. I don't have a VOM but can get one.

Does this act like a start capacitor? The unit is 13 years of age.

No it doesn't. If it has a start capacitor that would be to start
it. It also has a run capacitor. If either of these are bad it more
likely won't run at all rather than start and run for a while. If
it's starting up and then dying a few minutes later the first thing I
would check is the high pressure side. But you need gauges for that.
The compressors have a built in thermal over load switch. It sounds
like that maybe tripping. Does the outside fan stay on and just the
compressor cut off? That would be the overload switch. If the entire
outside unit cuts off that may be a safety device of some sort. Some
more complex units will shut themselves off if they are not working
properly. 13 years is not way too old but it's old enough that I'd
think about replacement before a major repair.