Question:

Air conditioner freezing up?

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This will probably sound like a very strange question. This morning my air conditioner was frozen up. I let it thaw and called the maintenance man, who checked the outside unit and said the coils were completely clogged with dirt and debris. I asked how it could have happened, and he said that the landscaping crew might have accidentally blown dirt into the coils. The landscape crew comes out on Thurs, so that would have been 5 days ago, and the AC unit was working well until this morning. He also had cleaned the coils outside mid-July, so this wasn't a buildup over time. My neighbor's air conditioning unit sits about two feet from mine and did not have the same problem.

Does it sound possible for the AC unit to take 5 days to freeze up, or is it more likely that the dirty coils would have caused it to freeze up within a day or two? It runs fairly constantly because we keep it set on 72 and most days the outdoor temp is 95-100.

A neighbor who I had problems with in the past was evicted yesterday and I'm wondering if that neighbor could have had anything to do with my air conditioner problem...not that I would retaliate in any way, I just wonder if I need to be on the lookout for future problems.

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5 ANSWERS


  1. your evap (indoor) coils freeze up due to low refrigerant or low air flow across the evap coils . dirty condenser(outdoor) coils will not cause it to freeze up


  2. When an indoor coil has been found to be nasty filthy,it has been that way for some time.It doesn't happen in a week.

    The outside coil won't have anything to do with a freeze up.

    Freeze ups happen when the airflow is restricted or the refrigerant charge is low.

    The saturation temp drops so low that all the humidity immediately freezes on the coil from the air moving across it and will eventually be a block of ice.

  3.   It's probaby a build-up from the landscape people.You didn't say if the A/C is working o.k.now? With the dirt build-up and cooler at night the evop.coils will freeze up.also have him check the pressures on the unit if it does it again.It may have a leak,and low on freon.

  4. The two most common reasons for an air conditioner to freeze up is 1)  a dirty condenser whereas dirt cuts down air flow, thus forcing the unit to work harder but less efficiently.  Eventually the compressor will just give up.  That is when you donate the unit to the bone yard.  2) The system is low on gas and the unit can no longer reach peak efficiency.  This is often due to a leak that has developed in the system.

    In your shoes, I would listen to the opinion of the weary old maintenance man.  He has no reason to steer you wrong, and I'm sure he has been around this same block before !

  5. Change your air filter.

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