Air conditioning kicks off and on and it is very hot HELP 10 points

Question

My air stopped cooling today in my apartment. The fan is blowing but not cool air. The maintenance came and change the fuses. Now the unit will kick on for about 10-15 minutes and then turn off 10-15 minutes so forth and so forth. While the unit is doing this the fan is on constantly . Please help I am burning up in this southern California heat

Answer 1

Sounds to me you may be low on refrigerant. Or excessive exposure of the suction line due to lack of insulation. Or your metering device is failing. Your system is most likely using HCFC-22 (R-22 / Freon) or HFC-410A (R-410A / Suva) if you have a newer high efficiency unit as a heat transferring medium. DO NOT BUY R-134A as stated by a responder above. You'd be lucky to get any type of refrigerant without an EPA license. If you are low on refrigerant there will be too much superheat in the cold suction gas returning to the compressor. This gas is used to cool the motor located inside the compressor dome. (Hermetic Compressor). There is a thermostat inside the compressor dome that will trip if the internal motor windings over heat. (Thermally protected). It may take several minutes before this resets. Apparently it drew too many amps at one point and blew a fuse. This may be related or another problem. The inside blower will remain to run if the compressor trips because it is not part of the condensers circuit and runs off the thermostats call for cool (Fan on / G wire terminal) separately. Call an HVAC repair service as this problem requires a technician to take a superheat reading on your system and possible charge the system. If this is a new unit you may have a leak somewhere and this will need to be repaired.

Answer 2

if it's not blowing cold air at all...it either needs freon..or the compressor has gone out......

Answer 3

YOUR LOW ON FREON....GOTO WALLMART and buy a can of R134a from the automotive area, and take it to a mechanic and have them install it for you ! ! !

Answer 4

theromostat is bad

Answer 5

There maybe a thremal device in the cooling system that protects it so it won't burn out the cooling motor.  The maintenance person should see it on the schematic... they sometimes cause this problem.  If it comes on and go off every so often, it's not a breaker because it would have to be reset before the cooling system would come back on.

Answer 6

not to sound like a perv take off your clothes and drink some cool water

Answer 7

Yep, you need an AC repairman.  Could be a very dirty filter and the coils are icing up.  Do you notice ice forming on one of the lines going to the unit.  As stated by others, the coils may be dirty or the unit is low on freon and the compressor kicks off because of it.  The problem is, the only one you can take care of is the filter.

Good luck.

Answer 8

Get your apartment maintenance to charge the freon for your unit.  It will help INSTANTLY. I just had the same problem with my AC and I'm in South Florida. I would DIE without my AC! Good luck!

Answer 9

there could be an energy saver mode that has been selected.  If so, try turning it back to normal cooling mode.  If that doesn't do it, make sure that your temperature sensor is getting the air that it needs.  I had that happen once and it turned out that the filter was blocking the temp. sensor from giving a correct reading.  Good luck and stay cool!

Answer 10

Would you like me to mail you some freon?....or are you going to find a repairman?

Answer 11

Sounds to me like you are either low on freon or your coils are mighty dirty or both. You need an ac man nothing you can do but call an ac mechanic.