Our air condition has been running non stop for 2 days and is not actually cooling the house at all. I went to the basement by the furnace and there is a puddle of water and the pipes coming from the unit outside appear to be frozen. What do I do? Is there a quick not expensive fix to this?
Definitely shut it off. The HVAC people won't be able to do anything until it's thawed out and the only way to do that is to shut it off. One time when that happened to us, we simply needed to change the filter. Another time when that happened, we ended up getting a new a/c unit. Could be anything! But first step is to shut if off. Hoping it's a quick (an inexpensive!) fix for you! Good luck.
turn it off and let it completely thaw out, and change your filters.
Turn it off. It is frozen.
It may be that you had a leak in freon that caused it to run too much trying to cool it (when there isn't enough freon on in it to do so effectively) and the constant running caused it to freeze up.
Turn it off completely so it can defrost. And call an A/C company. If it is simply a small leak, they might be able to have it back up and going for under $200. Depends on rates where you are, and what they have to do to locate the leak (that can be time consuming). OR it could be something else wrong with it.
But we've had our a/c stop cooling and start running continuously before, and both times, that was the problem. (2 different systems/houses).
Put it in the "off" position-it's probably in need of a recharge of coolant-and you don't want to damage/ burn -up the compressor. Call the HVAC company-my daughter just got hers done-thank goodness, under warranty-$700 +/-..eek! good luck!
Before spending money on having a repairman come out, try this. Turn the AC off and turn on the fan only. Let everything thaw out overnight with just the fan on. Replace the air filter in your furnace. Try to run the AC again in the morning.
This has happened to us a few times. Always because we went too long in between changing the filter.
ouch!! that's not a quick fix!!!
Sounds like your coolant is leaking. Shut it off and call an AC repairman...if you let it keep running - you will end up spending thousands to replace the WHOLE UNIT -
If you need to circulate the air - use the "fan" portion only - but NOT the AC.
here's a couple of links to a self-help...
http://www.ehow.com/how_###-###-####_repair-air-condition...
http://www.reliantairconditioning.com/blog/air-conditioni...
There are a whole mess of reasons your coils may freeze.
Like everyone else says shut it down. If you want to keep air moving turn the fan only on.
There should be a hose, a drain hose, running from the back of the furnace/blower unit. Pull it off the back and blow in it. When it gets clogged your coils will freeze. Just be warned if that is the problem water will gush out of the unit.
Is air moving? Last year our condenser would come on and the coils would freeze but no air movement. There are two blowers, one went out. This we had to have fixed professionally.
Check your filters.
Pretty much anything that restricts air flow is going to cause the coils to freeze.
Your filters may have been too clogged, so air could not pass thru easily, and it froze up. Our AC did this a week or two ago. We sat with our heat gun for a couple hours and melted the huge chunks of ice (hubby estimates a few gallons of water). After two hours of melting ice and tearing our air filters off of the ice, we let it sit overnight with windows open, AC off. Next morning there was still some ice on it. Hubbs melted that off, put in new air filters, and turned it on. Worked great. Been working great ever since. (Our AC is outside, industrial in size, and is right at one year old).
You need to call an air conditioner repairman. This is not something you can fix yourself. Refrigerated ac is complicated and requires special equipment.
I know this because my father and my brother were repairman.
Yes, check the filters first and put in new or clean them if they're clogged.
Shut it off because it's doing nothing right now except raising your electric bill!!
Call your AC rep ASAP in the am to get repairs. No, it may not be a cheap fix. Get it fixed correctly one time or spend the cheap fixes several times and end up spending more than you would have if you got the right fix from the get go.
Don't put "band-aids" on it. Fix it once and correctly.
Your condenser coils are frozen over. It would be a good idea to just turn it off and call an AC guy in the morning. Once it is thawed out you can try turning it on again but chances are it is going to have to be charged and maybe even cleaned out with an air compressor to get the dust out from deep inside.
Ours did this 2 summers ago. We live in a mobile home and as it thawed the water ran under the linoleum floor and rotted out the sub floor. So we have a large hole in front of the inside part of the AC unit. The outside one is only 2 years old since we had to replace it. We needed a much larger one anyway. We got a 2 1/2 ton to replace the 1 ton we had.
Turn it OFF!
Wait 24 hours.
Try it again.
If it's still not cooling, call a service.
This happened the DAY we moved into our brand new just built house. I was going in for a C section in a day. Yep, it was over 100 degrees, and I was too hot and freaked out to sleep, so I baked food for my older daughter and hubby to have while I was in the hospital. We had of course turned off the ac cause it was doing nothing. While I was baking it rained. I decided to try the ac again and it worked after the rain.
SO, you may have just overheated it, or had to much moisture in the house, both of which will freeze it up. My suggestion is turn it off for about 12 hours, then run the hose over it for a half hour (in a gentle rain not a gush) and try again. If that doesn't work, sorry, call a repair man. But all you wasted is some water if it doesn't work.
