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Cherokeekid88

Cherokeekid88

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 30, 2007
Location
High Point, NC
Wife was at home and called me to tell me something is going on at the house. She said she heard this noise inside the house that sounded like electrical sparks and then a smell that was similar to something electrical burning. She never saw anything, but as soon as she heard it she turned the ac off. She called the fire department and they came by and checked it out and one of the guys told her to turn the ac back on and when she did the guy smelled what she was talking about and told her to turn the ac back off. They then took the paneling off our heat pump/fernance????? (Sorry, not to familiar with the ac jargon. We have a small room with a big contraption in it that has a pilot light) they didn't see anything but noticed that the filter inside this contraption had moisture on it and just didn't look too good. Again, this is my wife trying to explain this to me, so this is all i have to go by.

There is a little box towards the bottom that has wires going to it.....

Just trying to get somewhat of an idea on things I can check or what it could be.....it's already freakin hot in this house.....

Also...firemen turned the pilot light off.
 
Some pics would go a long way here in helping us figure out what you're talking about
 
Without seeing said pictures yet do you know if your house has a "whole house" humidifier?
 
lol beat me to it. Hm that looks like teh typical air filter - its wet, huh?
Can you clarify how it fits in there?

All I'm seeing here is the gas furnace (top) and the "squirrel cage" fan that blows air around the house. Somewhere around there is the space that the condenser coild is sitting in.
My first thought is that the condenser had ice buildup and when it got hot it melted off and got the filter wet.
That dosn't help w/ diagnosing your smell and what actually failed though.
 
Well, my wife said, the house was cool...it was working (the A/C that is) but turned the A/C off as soon as she heard that sound and the smell.
Was just reading that it could possibly be my condensate drain is plugged??

Is it possibly water hit some of those connectors and caused a spark/burning smell?

Looks like in the one photo, that the bottom left is wet
 
I'm guessing that the ac portion is on the top. That looks like a pvc condensate line running down the right hand side. And the filter goes in the bottom? I'd guess plugged condensate, too... But that should be easy to check. Does not look like you have a condensate pump, so the drain would have to be stopped up with lint or something.
 
I'm no HVAC tech, but an electrician.

Turn it on and see what smokes, that's what's bad, replace it.
 
If the condensate drain is clogged, the fan may have started picking up the water, & slinging it, =noise, & smell =water on hot fan? But the drain pan should have a sensor, to shut off the unit, if it overfills.
That filter & floor, should Not be wet, so start with the drain line.
 
I'm guessing the filter is behind the return vent shown in the pic w the filter, I'm also guessing the AC condensate drain is clogged as said before and the fan was flooded and slung the water onto the filter and the motor causing shorting and the smell, but I am NO EXPERT :D ( says the guy who's advice to Tony was to stay downstairs when his ac crapped out :D)
 
ok, where exactly is the condensate drain at?... and the filter goes towards the bottom...once I put the panels back on, there is a place for the filter to slide into. although the filter is the wrong size....whenever we moved in, I noticed that but forgot all about it until yesterday.
 
From your pic, it looks to me like your heat exchanger (gas pack) sits immediately above your blower and the section above that is your evaporator coil for the AC freon expansion. It should be behind that panel in one of your pictures at the top that says 'comfortmaker' on it. It also will be where the copper lines go into the box of course since those are your freon liquid high side (small) and return low side suction (large) lines. It's likely an A-frame coil and they sit in a rectangular tray that goes around the perimeter of the coil to catch the water as it condenses off the bottom of the coil edges. It's 4-5 inches wide and goes around the whole coil with the center open for air to pass through from the blower. The condensate will drain from that tray into that white PVC line I see in the pic (or at least it better be!). You just have to pull off the cover of that section of the air handler/coil unit and you'll see clearly. Sure seems something is plugged in your condensate drain line and right now those things are pulling off a ton of water. That thing should be dry below that coil condensate tray, definitely no water on the heat exchanger fins/coils or blower area and not at the bottom!!
 
Seems everyone is thinking its a condensate drain problem...which seems to be a somewhat easy fix. Wife and mother in law are still at the house burning up, waiting for the A/C man to show up.....
 
ok, so something is going on with our A/C still. Was running fine Friday night and yesterday. Today, it was set on 72...seemed ok, and my father in law was coming over and so we turned the A/C down to 70 (he keeps his house like the artic) and noticed it wasn't getting much cooler and I noticed that the t stat was reading 73 in the house but was set for 70.

Also, noticed that the A/C was not running at all....so I turned it off and let it chill for a seconds...then i turned it back on and it kicked on and the unit outside seemed to be running ok and there was cool air coming out of the vents...then the system just cut off and the inside temp read 74. So not really sure what is going on. The guy that came and checked it said everything looked ok and that our furnace could use updating at some point, but the freon level looked good....

So now, we have the A/C off....
 
Also forgot to mention that when we woke up this morning and the power had gone off.....Cable boxes had to be reset, microwave said pf.

Any help? could it be a fuse?

Edit: Just turned the A/C back on and it kicked on immediately and has been running for about 5 min now and the inside temp is 74 and we set it for 72.

And as I was typing this, the wife yelled up that the the system shut off after 5 min of working. The temp of 72 was never reached and the outside unit is continuing to run until I manual turn it off from the t stat...which I just did...
 
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So turns out..its the fan motor. Guy said, the fan motor was getting too hot and causing it to shut off prematurely. it also didn't sounds right....they cleaned out everything and replaced the motor and all is well as of now. Sounds like the power has been restored. so hopefully that will last us a while.
 
Well, glad it was something simple.
That filter was pretty nasty - get the impression it's rarely changed? If you let it get all clogged, it puts a lot of extra strain on your fan motor.. .aside from just having crappy flow in the house
 
Yeah that filter looked like it hadn't been check even before we moved in....with us being new homeowners, I didn't and still don't know all the things to check...but I will be sure to be on top of checking stuff with it now
 
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