If your air conditioner is not coming on at all, you may be able to get it running again by resetting a tripped breaker. However, you first need to be able to recognize a tripped breaker and some reasons as to why your air conditioner may have tripped the breaker.
How To Reset The Breaker
At your breaker panel, you should see all the switches are turned in the same direction. They are all very uniformly in line with each other so it is very easy to tell when one is not pointed in the same direction. If you see a switch that is not going in the same direction or somehow looks differently than the rest, it has tripped or turned off. Sometimes a tripped breaker will have a loose feeling.
To reset the breaker that has tripped you’re going to turn it to the off position then you’ll feel it kind of click. Then you reset it by turning it back on. a
Why Your Breaker May Have Tripped
Your breaker is a safety device so it usually does not trip for no reason. There are a couple of reason why your breaker may have tripped where it would be fine to reset it yourself. For example, you might have had a power outage where your lights flicker off and come right back on while your air conditioner was running. That could cause a breaker to trip. Also, your air conditioner could have short cycled due to someone turning down the thermostat at the same time that the air conditioner was coming on. In strange cases such as the ones described above, it will help you to know how to reset your own tripped breaker to get your air conditioner working again.
How Many Times Should You Reset The Breaker?
You should never tolerate a breaker tripping repeatedly. If your breaker trips more than once we recommend not continuing to reset it. The breaker is a safety device so we recommend having a professional come to investigate what could be causing the breaker to trip and how to fix any problem with your heating and air conditioning system.
In the video above we explain a very easy simple tip to seal the space around your furnace filter slot.
We want to deliver the airflow where it’s supposed to go and the furnace filter slot is a weak spot in every system that allows air to escape the filter and go directly to your furnace blower.
Why Is It A Problem That Some Air Escapes The Filter And Goes Directly To The Furnace Blower?
When air is not filtered, it allows all the dust, dirt, and allergens to go directly into your furnace blower and into your house. This will make your furnace dirty and less efficient. Your house will seem to have more dust, and dirt in your furnace creates many problems and will cause parts to wear faster and break more often.
Even More Important If Your Furnace Is Located In An Attic, Crawl Space, Woodshop, etc.
If your furnace is located in a dirty (woodshop, etc) or unconditioned space, the space around your furnace filter lets the air in that space escape the filter entirely and go directly to the furnace blower. Your furnace will be pulling humid, dirty air directly into the blower compartment. That is not a good thing at all. That’s why we recommend closing the space around your filter with something like the FilterLock by Allergy Zone.
We recommend the FilterLock Furnace Filter Slot Seal Door Cover to solve this pesky problem. See below for our affiliate link to the FilterLock Furnace Filter Slot Seal Door Cover.
It improves indoor air quality by blocking allergens, dust, and gases like carbon monoxide from entering your home.
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
If your air conditioner is running but not cooling enough, we have two simple checks you can do yourself:
1. check for a dirty furnace air filter that is blocking airflow, and
2. checking for a dirty outdoor coil that is restricting airflow from the outdoor unit.
Dirty Furnace Air Filters Can Cause the Air Conditioner to Not Cool Enough
The first thing to check if your air conditioner is running but not cooling enough, is your air filter. The air filter is typically easy to access for most people. Pull out the filter and make sure that it is relatively clean. If a dirty air filter is causing the air conditioner to not cool well, you can see a mat of dust and dirt over the surface. Home centers sell filters that are pleated-type filters that are extremely restrictive to air flow. Your filter could turn into a piece of cardboard as far as airflow. A really restricted air filter cuts down the air flow to the air conditioner to the point where affects how well it cools.
Trim Bushes and Branches Around Outdoor Unit To Not Block the Outdoor Unit From Expelling Heat
The second thing to check if your air conditioner is running but not cooling enough. is the outdoor unit. (The outdoor unit is called the condensing unit.) Look at the outdoor unit to see if there are overgrown bushes that are blocking the airflow out of the top of the unit. Make sure everything is trimmed back at least a couple of feet all around the air conditioner so you have a free flow of air.
Check For Dirt On Outdoor Coil
Another thing to check is to see if there is dirt on your outdoor coil. This can be a bit difficult to check as you typically need to look up through louvers to see the exposed aluminum coil on the inside. There are little fins on it you can clearly see. Dust, dirt and in our area, cottonwood seeds will completely impact the coil which cuts down the air flow.
Pro tip: You can wash the outdoor coil, but it needs to be carefully washed from the inside out. It is very easy to damage the outdoor unit if it is not cleaned properly.
Dirt and airflow restriction are the main reasons why your air conditioner is not cooling enough. Therefore, if you don’t see a problem with the filter or the outdoor coil, contact the professional.
An air conditioner SEER rating stands for Seasonal Energy Efficiency Rating. This rating is made by the regulating authorities taking all the air conditioners out for a test drive. They have evaluated the air conditioners for efficiency based on how they cycle on and off. The SEER Rating is a number that is often overlooked by homeowners, however it can actually be quite useful.
How Can You Use a SEER Rating?
If you know your Air Conditioner’s SEER rating, you can use it to calculate how much you spend on electricity for your air conditioner.
In order to do this calculation we need to know a few other numbers.
The capacity of your air conditioner.
Your air conditioner’s SEER Rating
The number of hours of electricity you pay for during the month
Below is the calculation used in the video below to determine electricity costs:
1. Capacity (Tons x 12,000 BTUs)
divided by SEER rating
= Watts
2. Watts divided by 1,000 = KW
3. Kilowatts x Hours of Use = Total kw hours
4. Total kw hours x electricity cost kw hour ($0.12-$0.15)
= Total $$$ to run A/C for the Summer
If after you do this calculation and the total amount is lower than you typically pay, it is probable you are losing efficiency in your air conditioner. If your air conditioner has lost efficiency it is actually operating at a lower SEER rating than what it should be.
What Would Cause Your Air Conditioner to Operate at a Lower Efficiency Rating?
Dirt and airflow are the biggest culprits in air conditioner efficiency. Dirt both indoors and outdoors can cause problems for your air conditioner’s efficiency if it is not properly maintained. If the outdoor coil is dirty the heat transfer capability goes down. When the aluminum fins on the outdoor unit lose their shine they are not as efficient and don’t transfer heat as efficiently as it did in the past. Dirt also causes wear and tear forcing motors to work more overtime than they did originally.
That’s why after having them professionally cleaned using the proper coil cleaners the heat transfer capabilities will improve.
What Is The Minimum Air Conditioner SEER Rating?
It is possible you live in a house with a 10 SEER air conditioner, but the new minimum SEER rating is a 13 SEER. This will sometimes depend on where you live, but in our area of Johnson County, KS the minimum will typically be a 13 or 14 SEER.
What SEER Rating Should I Get? (What Is The Difference Between a 14 SEER And a 16 SEER Air Conditioner?)
If you are in the market for an air conditioner the question may come up on what SEER rating should you get. There is a difference in upfront costs. A higher SEER rating on an air conditioner will cause the price to increase. However, from our perspective, the increase in upfront cost will rarely be worth it if you are buying thinking a higher SEER rating will save you more in electricity. It will save on electricity, but only a small amount.
HOWEVER, the higher SEER ratings on air conditioners also correspond with other features that are valuable. Often, a 16 SEER air conditioner will have a two speed compressor that allows for benefits as far as how your home feels, the humidity control, etc. The other features on the 16 SEER in relation to the 14 SEER is what we find to be the biggest difference over the efficiency rating.
The quantum leap in efficiency is getting rid of that 10 SEER air conditioner and putting in even the most basic of air conditioners today such as the 13 SEER.
The MicroPower Guard Air Cleaner uses an electric charge to polarize and trap harmful particles while simultaneously cleaning the air in your home. It is important to change the filter correctly in your electronic air cleaner.
In this video Ramon shows us how to properly replace the media filter in his MicroPower Guard Electronic Air Cleaner. If you leave the power on to your furnace while you change the filter, it could damage your system.
The MicroPower Guard an air filtration system designed to trap microscopic contaminants that traditional filters can’t catch. See below for a demonstration of how an electronic air cleaner works.
Do you love the circulation an attic fan provides? (or whole house fan depending on your area) In this video we show you how to simulate the circulation of an attic fan by using your existing heating and air conditioning system. Using a variable drive blower for circulation can simulate the circulation you love with an attic fan, but doesn’t let in all the allergens. It is also a safer choice as an attic fan creates a negative pressure on your house that does not allow for proper venting of gas fired appliances.
Before you understand how a heat pump works you must understand how an air conditioner works. A heat pump works just like an air conditioner except it also runs in the opposite direction in order to create heat as well. In heat pump mode we are taking heat out of the air outside moving it inside.
With an air conditioning system, you have the unit outside and a unit inside (usually the furnace down in your basement). The furnace contains the blower which is our means of moving air. You also have a cooling coil located on top of your furnace. Inside of the air conditioner unit outside is a compressor we’ll think of it as a pump that pumps refrigerant between the indoor and outdoor units. Above the outside compressor is a fan.
In the spring and summer when your thermostat says “hey it is getting a little warm in here.” It sends two signals out. It sends one downstairs to the basement and it turns on the blower. The blower now comes on and it starts pulling all the air out of the house via your return air grills. (You see the return air grills usually high on the wall toward an interior wall.) It starts pulling all the air out of the house and it takes it down to the furnace and it then accelerates it and pushes it through that cooling coil.
The cooling coil is hooked up to the unit outside via the refrigerant lines. That the second signal the thermostat sends out is a signal to the unit outside in the yard. This turns on the compressor and it starts starts pumping refrigerant through the coil inside and circulates to the coil outside and back again. It just got this creates this loop of refrigerant going from inside the house to outside the house.
What we’re doing is were actually absorbing the heat out of the house and into the refrigerant. It is being circulated then outside to the coil where we’re circulating it through that coil and we’re releasing the heat outside in the yard. (If you’ve ever placed your hand above the fan on your outdoor unit you feel hot air. That is actually the hot air that was taken out of your house!)
On the inside portion of your cooling system, we’re taking the warm moist air out of the house. Then we’re blowing it through that cooling coil and chilling it making it cooler. Then that cool air gets blown back inside the house.
That’s how an air conditioner works.
A heat pump does that very same thing. Normally you wouldn’t know the difference between an air conditioner or a heat pump. They look exactly the same but unlike your air conditioner, it also starts up in the wintertime. In the winter time we need heat in the house. When you need heat, the thermostat sends out those same two signals. It turns on the blower downstairs and we start gathering all the air up and blowing it through that coil downstairs.
The thermostat also starts up the unit outside and gets the fan going and everything. However, the heat pump is literally running backwards than how an air conditioner works. The refrigerant flow is the opposite of what it is in the air conditioning mode.
In heat pump mode we are taking heat out of the air outside moving it inside.
Then we release the heat from the outside air into your home inside. It is just the opposite of what the air conditioner does.
If it is already cold outside, how are you taking heat out of the air outside and moving it inside in order to heat your home?
Ah you are paying attention. Though it is 32 degrees outside It is outside feels cold to us. There is still usable heat in the air. Absolute zero is way way way below zero. So, on a 30-35 degree day, there’s plenty of heat that we can absorb out of the air outside and release it inside the home.
Pros and Cons of a Heat Pump
Heat pumps do a great job heating your home, however let’s say the temperature overnight gets down to zero. As it gets colder outside, there is less heat available outside. When it is colder outside, the air we are blowing inside will not feel as warm.
At 30-35 degrees there is plenty of heat available outside to heat a typical home. As it gets colder and colder and colder outside at some point the heat pump is going to be running all the time trying to keep up with the demands of what you need inside. Eventually it will need supplemental help. Supplemental help could mean a gas furnace or electric heat strip heat because it is just too cold outside.
The Economics of the Cost of Heating Your Home
For years here in Johnson County, Kansas City Power and Light would have a heat pump rate. There was a dramatic cut in the rate for electricity. In the winter months you would get a drastic cut off your utility rate. And so it was economically advantageous to operate that heat pump instead of burning natural gas. If you think back 10 years ago, natural gas prices were unstable. They would spike up one year, were would see a fifty to a hundred percent increase in gas prices from one year to the next, so it made it very advantageous to use the electric source to heat your home. When you’re using that heat pump you’re using electricity.
Right now we are in 2019. Kansas City Power and Light has taken away those incentives as far as electric rates. (I have a heat pump sitting out in the yard, but I do not use it.) I also have a high efficiency gas furnace and with the price of natural gas and the efficiency of my appliances, I’m better off just using natural gas to heat my home instead of electricity. Without that break in the electrical rate, there is no economic advantage in using the heat pump and personally I find the warmer air from the gas furnace more comfortable.
Now, some climates are perfect for heat pumps no matter the utility rates. There are places in the south were they don’t have weather that goes much below 40 degrees so only having a heat pump is a perfect solution to heating the home.
Also, as far as efficiency goes, with the all electric heat pump, you can think of it as always twice as efficient as that furnace. The furnace air feels warmer, however the heat pump is running twice as efficiently. It will deliver twice as much heat per dollar as the furnace does.
So it just depends on what your options are on weighing the pros and cons of using a heat pump.
How Do You Know if You Have a Heat Pump?
The dead giveaway is on your thermostat. You’ve got a few more switches on your thermostat if you have a heat pump.
With a regular air conditioner thermostat, there are heat | cool | off positions for your system. There may also be a blower switch which either says automatic or on. A heat pump thermostat has few more switches on it. If you have a heat pump you’ll see a term like emergency heat on the thermostat and you’ll have a heat | cool | off switch just like an air conditioner. The emergency heat is a setting that you can manually turn off the heat pump, and turn on the gas furnace or whatever you use for supplemental heat.
If something malfunctions a with the heating option on the heat pump, you can go to manually go to the emergency heat setting turn off the unit outside and still have a source for heat in that house.
What Is That Loud Noise Coming From My Heat Pump?
There are a few common noises that you may have with a heat pump.
Often you may hear a loud shaking from the outdoor unit. That is most often the heat pump going through a defrost mode. Depending on the weather conditions, there will be times when the heat pump has frost form on the unit outside. It is working normally but when the temperature drops outside the heat pump will ask itself every 90 minutes if there is frost on the outdoor unit. It has little sensors so it will know if there is frost or not. If frost is detected it goes through a defrost cycle. That sounds like a “whoosh”. What happens is in order to get rid of the frost the heat pump will reverse the direction of the refrigerant and run backwards. The unit is trying to use the hot gas of the refrigerant to defrost the unit outside.
If you’re fortunate enough to see this defrost mode, it is quite a show. Since it melts the frost off it turns to steam and so it literally looks like their outdoor unit is getting ready to explode.
Seriously, we have gotten terrified calls from homeowners witnessing the defrost mode thinking that something was blowing up outside.
Pro Tip For Being Kind To Your Heat Pump
If you are running your heat pump during winter storms, it is common to hear a rattling noise outside. Ice can form on the fan blades and possibly even get out of balance because there are ice formations on it.
Ice storms is another can be a problematic time for a heat pump. Sometimes it doesn’t hurt to just go ahead and turn it off and run the furnace instead.
Many people ask: Why is my air conditioner leaking water or icing up? If you see water leaking from your indoor coil or ice on your air conditioner it is having a problem. The main causes for this are: restricted airflow due to a blocked filter or ice forming, and an incorrect refrigerant charge that can cause ice to form and blow the air to your blower.
The Magic of Refrigeration
When the air conditioner is working normally, it is taking all the hot air from the inside of your home and blowing it across the cold coil that is located near the blower of your hvac system. Included in that hot air from your house is all the moisture and dirt that was in that air as well. When the air conditioner is working correctly that evaporator coil will condense that moisture and send it to the floor drain while the dry, cool air is sent back into your home making everything feel more comfortable. The dust and dirt from the air will be blocked by the furnace filter.
Your Air Conditioner Functions as a Giant De-Humidifier
When we take the moisture out of the air it feels more pleasant and your home will feel less muggy. Almost even more important than the temperature, a lack of humidity in the air makes your whole home more comfortable.
As that moisture is taken out of the air and blown across the cold coil, moisture can freeze to the coil turning it into a block of ice. If a block of ice forms on your evaporator coil, that will eventually restrict the airflow to the blower causing the entire system to malfunction.
Why Would The Coil Freeze?
An improper refrigerant charge. If you have an improper refrigerant charge it can cause the evaporator coil to become TOO COLD that will then cause the moisture taken out of the air to freeze to the coil instead of draining to the drain pan. This then causes a block to the airflow causing the system to shut down.
You will know this is happening if you hear the air conditioner running however you do not feel any airflow from the registers. That means there is a block in airflow. It is best to turn off the unit to melt the ice so your service technician can figure out what caused the initial problem. You can think of the block of ice as a symptom of a different problem that needs to be solved.
Refrigerant Leaks Cause Improper Refrigerant Charge
If your air conditioner was working fine last summer and this summer your refrigerant charge is off, that means there may be a leak somewhere. Your hvac system should be a closed system where the refrigerant doesn’t go back, stale or run out. If your system is low on refrigerant there is a leak. Oftentimes people want to fix the problem by recharging their air conditioner with more refrigerant. However that is not a fix. If you have an unrepaired leak and you add more refrigerant to your system, that means refrigerant is leaking out as soon as you put it in.
Recharging the air conditioner without fixing a leak is also not the least expensive repair option. Refrigerant has become extremely expensive depending on type. It is best to fix the leak first and then correct the refrigerant charge.
Restricted Airflow
An air conditioner can also “ice up” due to a blocked air filter. If an air filter is extremely dirty and plugged up, it can cause the same effect as a bad refrigerant charge to make the unit operate too cold and will form a block of ice.
Often when you see water dripping from the unit it is because the ice that had formed is thawing when the unit shuts off due to lack of airflow.
Until you thaw out and observe it operating, you won’t know why it is malfunctioning.
Keeping Water Where It Is Not Supposed To Be Can Be A Challenge
Water can cause many problems with your air conditioner. Another important issue is to make sure you are properly getting the water from your air conditioner to the drain in your basement. There is a drain pan that is paired with your cooling coil. It is important to keep that drain pan clean and unrestricted. If there is a clog in the drain pan or the hose from the unit to the pan that can also cause a water problem.
One thing to keep in mind is that your coil is in a cool, wet, dark place. It is very easy for the water draining from the evaporator coil to turn into very slimy stuff. You may have heard of “pan treatments” during your routine maintenance visits. A “pan treatment” will treat the water that sits in the drain pan that will help the drain line, hoses and pan cleared from plugs. The drain pan has an algaecide to combat the algae and will allow the water to drain properly.
A De-Humidifier Will Help With Unwanted Water On The Ductwork
When the air conditioner is running, the ductwork is cold and dark surrounded by warmer air. When the moisture from your home comes into contact with the cold ductwork, that can cause moisture to form on the outside of the ductwork. This problem can be solved with a whole home dehumidifier. A whole home dehumidifier can be attached to the ductwork or directly to areas that have the biggest moisture problems.
Moisture in a home knows no boundaries. If storage room is humid it’s getting into the rest of the house. If you dry out humid spots, it helps the whole house.
Dehumidifiers also give your air conditioner a break from bearing the sole responsibility of removing humidity from your home. With a dehumidifier you do not need to run the air conditioner as much to maintain a comfortable temperature. You can also keep your house a few degrees warmer and not run ac as much with a dehumidifier since a dehumidifier makes the air feel cooler. Since the dehumidifier runs independently from the air conditioner, on days where it is not hot, but humid, the home can be kept comfortable and yet not use the air conditioner at all.
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Our employees go through an extensive background checks before being hired, and random drug tests, where permitted by law, throughout their tenure.
Heating and cooling service or repairs are often needed, but seldom much fun. That’s why we hope these savings coupons from One Hour will help you feel just a little better. Simply print out a coupon and present it to your One Hour Heating and Air Conditioning Technician the next time you have a need. Or, refer a friend or family member who might have a need. They’ll owe you one! Call 913.829.1505 to schedule an appointment.
