Central Unit

[bersaguy]

Well my a/c unit decided to take a dump this morning. I noticed it was getting warm in the house and went and check thermostat and it read 81 degrees and said unit was on but nothing was coming from vents. Called landlord and he said he will be here this evening after work. Folks have asked me why I have a few 110 window units in my windows while I have Central. This is the reason why. I turned on both units in both bedrooms that are side by side and put an ocilating fan in the living room between to 2 bedrooms and it is not real cool in here right now but tolerable till the land lord gets unit back up and working. I do have a good landlord and he fixes things as quick as he can. This is the 2nd time in last 5 years I have had unit issues and the first time it was down 2 days waiting on parts and window units kept it ok till repair was made. At least it is not as hot outside as it has been the last couple days............

[Ronald_55]

Ours was down a while back for a weekend and all we had were box fans. Was real hard to deal with and it was nowhere as hot as now.

Glad to know you thought ahead.

[Omega]

What kind of unit?  Mine went out and it was the capacitor, a relatively cheap part.  Mine was $21 but that is because I bought it local, it would of been $14 ($8 right now) if I would of ordered it online.

[tacops]

I tip my hat to you Bersaguy, you had a problem (A/C), obviously you are a guy who thinks ahead and had a contingency in place, rather than complain incessantly because something broke (as things always do) you actually complimented your landlord by recognizing that he typically gets things fixed as quickly as he can.  Though I have never met you I would say you are a can do, conservative (not much of a reach considering your presence on this board and content of posts), understanding kind of guy that knows how to sensibly deal with a challenge.  But I pity the fool that doesn't get your A/C fixed quick in this kind of heat. 

[Sam1]

1 hour ago, Omega said:

What kind of unit?  Mine went out and it was the capacitor, a relatively cheap part.  Mine was $21 but that is because I bought it local, it would of been $14 ($8 right now) if I would of ordered it online.

capacitors were only running about 15% on both of my units right before winter - thank goodness that I heard some random commercial on the radio and thought to call a local place to have everything checked out.  Little $75 service call potentially staved off ruining a motor (or two).

[bersaguy]

3 hours ago, tacops said:

I tip my hat to you Bersaguy, you had a problem (A/C), obviously you are a guy who thinks ahead and had a contingency in place, rather than complain incessantly because something broke (as things always do) you actually complimented your landlord by recognizing that he typically gets things fixed as quickly as he can.  Though I have never met you I would say you are a can do, conservative (not much of a reach considering your presence on this board and content of posts), understanding kind of guy that knows how to sensibly deal with a challenge.  But I pity the fool that doesn't get your A/C fixed quick in this kind of heat. 

Thank you for the compliments Tacops. yea, I have always been one to plan ahead for things within my power to do. I know that things do break down and most times at the worst time possible so I try to be ready. As far as my landlord. He is a nice guy from some foreign country. I think Budapest is where he told me one time but could be wrong. He is a very hard working fair and honest man. He has my A/C back up and running already. It took him about 30 minutes to find the problem and had to replace a small transformer and it's up and running again. He never complains when I call him about an issue but some things I just fix myself if it's something I can do and does not cost much so don't bother him with it. I think he knows I do that even though I have never told him. I think my neighbors in the other duplexes may have mentions that I would fix small things in their places so he does not have to make a trip for something that takes 10 minutes and 5 bucks to fix but they would call him for that. The elderly lady had him come once to change a light bulb in her livingroom even though there was still 3 working. I told her from now on call me to do stuff like that. The landlord bought Central unit filters for all 3 units and gave them to the tennants and when he showed up to give me mine I showed him a pack of 5 new ones I already had in utility room. Once a month I go to the other units and change out the filters so he does not have to come and do it. Just who I am!..........

[Raoul]

Must be the year for AC replacement. I got tired of having to charge my 30 yr old AC and put a new unit in just before my knee replacement in May.

[bersaguy]

8 minutes ago, Raoul said:

Must be the year for AC replacement. I got tired of having to charge my 30 yr old AC and put a new unit in just before my knee replacement in May.

Smart move on your part my friend. Your going to find that the new unit will be much more energy efficient and save on your power bills in the future. I have lived here for about 18 + years and about 6 years ago just about the time my landlord purchased the place the Central unit that was on this cottage took a major dump and the other owner had to put one in and this place sold to the man that has it now 2 months later so he dodged a bullet. Anyway I saw a large difference in my power bills as they were down as much as 30 to 40%.

[Raoul]

2 minutes ago, bersaguy said:

Smart move on your part my friend. Your going to find that the new unit will be much more energy efficient and save on your power bills in the future. I have lived here for about 18 + years and about 6 years ago just about the time my landlord purchased the place the Central unit that was on this cottage took a major dump and the other owner had to put one in and this place sold to the man that has it now 2 months later so he dodged a bullet. Anyway I saw a large difference in my power bills as they were down as much as 30 to 40%.

I'm just happy that it's cool...lol

[Jeb48]

First house I have owned with central air and it went down twice this Summer so far. Not knowing anything about them I called for service and looked over their shoulder trying to learn. First time it was an expansion valve that was causing the evaporator to freeze up. When it shut down and thawed, over flowed the evaporator pan and went into a lower pan that shut off everything when it filled with water. Service guy used a wet vac and sucked up all the water to get it running so he could do the troubleshooting. So when it stopped last week and I saw water on the floor I figured the evaporator was freezing up again. Called for service which was going to be the next day. I went out and bought a wet vac and sucked up the water and got the ac up. I  was shutting it down every hour or so to thaw but noticed it wasn't freezing up so I just left it on and sucked up about 4 gallons of water every few of hours before it got deep enough to shut down. When it cooled off in the evening we opened windows and turned on window fans. Turned out to be the pump that drains the evaporator pan. The small $30 wet vac kept us cool and now hangs on the wall close to the air handler.

Maybe I need to keep a Window unit on the shelf for back up for next time at least we could keep the bedroom cool.

[Jamie Jackson]

Good on you Bersa, all the way around!  

Being proactive just makes sense. We lived in SW MS near New Orleans at the time of Katrina. As we had a window unit and generator we were able to maintain a "cool place" during the 6 weeks we had no electricity. It was a valuable lesson learned.

We've been in Knoxville since 2006. We purchased our current home in 2007 and installed 2 window units in our home in 2008.

We have a single central unit and it services 3000 sq feet. We put reflective tinting on all of our windows around the same time as installing the window units. We literally cut our electric bills in half once we did this. We keep a generator serviceable to run the window units and freezers ... just in case.

I can always dress with more warn clothing in the winter...but darn! You can only get just so naked in this heat and not be arrested! 

[Sam1]

11 hours ago, Raoul said:

I'm just happy that it's cool...lol

Yep! A few $ is irrelevant as long as I'm cool.

[Dustbuster]

good backup plan, the biggest cause leading to failure is when coils in outdoor and indoor units get dirty. (condensor and evaporator) most folks wont take an hour per year to clean them. the coils get filled w dirt and debris over time which gets past filters inside, and into the coils outside. dirty coils make your unit work twice as hard and eventually fail at half of its life cycle. some stuff will go out ie motors and contactors but those are usually easy to replace. most hvac co's will just try to sell

you a new system if its over 5 years old. plenty of info and how tos on the net that can save u thousands if you own your own. many ac guys, not all but many dont want to troubleshoot as they get commissions, dont be afraid to get a second opinion. hope this helps!!!

 

 

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[bersaguy]

Quote

 

Well, I have to give another company a hat tip also and that is the power company here in Gallatin. When Power goes down they are on it and I mean on it right now. I have been with out power 5 times in 18 years here.The longest was 4 days about 6 years ago and that was when a storm came through town and my neighbor 3 doors down had a tree about 2.5 feet across that was dead go over and down and took power lines down with it. I learned something new with that. The power company is not allowed to come on private property and cut a tree up to get it off their power lines. It is up to the land owner to get the tree cut and moved.  The land owner was not getting in any hurry until the insurance company came out and took pictures because he said he was going to make insurance pay for it. Well , he lost out on that because the Insurance company said they would have paid for the tree cutiing if it had fallen on his house but not in his yard. He had to pay to have the tree cut up and that took another 2 days getting someone to come and cut it up because all the tree cutters were still on other jobs.

That was when I bought m generator. Up until that point every other time power went down it was back up in 3 hours or less.

Funny story about that and then I will shut up. When we lose power the power trucks come and guys walk through all the back yards checking transformers on the poles to see which one was blown. I saw the guy checking the one on my pole between my house and neighbors and I asked him if it was a transformer and he said yea and they were cecking to make sure it was only one and I asked him what caused it to blow and he said fried a squirrel. He said that is the normal reason we lose a transformer. Well about 5 feet off the ground I have 2 squirrel feeders!!!!!

   I looked at the guy and said I guess I better move those huh and he laughed and said not to bother. If they have not blown your transformer in all the years we have known they are there they won't hurt it now.................LMAO

Edited July 26, 2017 by bersaguy