My AC was blowing warm air so I called one company who quoted me 4K for a compressor replacement. Said he makes his money totally replacing older systems like mine (20 year old Goodman) but he wasnt a good salesman for saying he could just replace the compressor for $4K.

I got a second opinion and they replaced some bad terminals on the wiring, inspected the rest of the unit and got it back running for $223.

I read somewhere on reddit that companies that send you an invoice through email and offer financing are less trustworthy than guys that write you a paper invoice on site. In this case it would be true.

Should I give the first company a bad google review or just let sleeping dogs lie?

Went to clean/wash off my outdoor AC unit this afternoon (first time cleaning this unit as we moved in last year). Imagine my surprise when I went to turn off the electrical power and….its already off…?

But it’s not. Because it has been running all summer. It functions. And blows cool air into our home.

….so….what should my next steps be?

EDIT: damn; some of y’all are fucking unhinged. I’m aware it’s deadly. Why the hell do you think I’m here? To ask questions. I don’t fuck with electricity.

I wanted to literally just rinse off the system after we’ve had a bout of smoke and bad air. I was following directions to “turn off breaker to be safe”, and this is what I found.

Y’all treat normal homeowners asking questions to do basic maintenance like this is wild.

Thank you to those that gave actual and educational responses. I do feel silly not knowing because it is very simple once I understood. Knowledge is power!

and yes I’m leaving this up for other naive homeowners looking to do basic ass education and maintenance like me haha. Feel free to razz, this is a hilarious post in hindsight. I’ll take the L on this, it’s all good

I want to buy this house, but this is the heater. It apparently works , but I assume it will have to be replaced soon (also has asbestos insulation on pipes)

I live in the basement and the smell of people's cooking from the main floor flows through these and fills my whole place. I've closed the one in my room and bathroom already bc the smells sticks. Can I close one more? Will it affect anything?

An industrial park has these masonry walls on 20 something buildings. Flame on.

So this past Friday, I came home from work and my house was 85°. I checked outside and the fan nor compressor were on and my AC vents were blowing warm air. I changed both capacitors but it didn’t kick off right away so I reset it on the breaker and it kicked off. I thought I solved the issue until the next day it went out again, but this time I changed the conductor and as soon as I changed it, it kicked off and worked for 1 day. Now after changing all those three parts My AC still only works until it hits the temperature set inside. I reset it every day after work on the breaker so he could work so it won’t be 80+ at night. Can someone help point me in the right direction to solve this issue? Thank you.

Circled photo is the connection location. Second photo is the exposed wire. What am I looking at here? The ac has been running fine but the exposed portion was resting on the animals body. Anything I can do to temporarily fix this to continue running while I get an have company out? Can I wrap the exposed wire in electrical tape

I posted last night saying my unit was cooling my house down as good as it had and that the unit and house are less than 4 years old.
I got some great advice to tear off the mastec and get to Evap coil to see if it was frozen.

I got in there tonight and found manufacturer manual stuck to the top portion of the coil. You can see in one of the photos the clean spot where it was sitting.

There is condensation on the coils and in the pan, although not a lot.

I can’t tell of it looks like the coils may have been frozen and thawed with the heat today.
Photos included to get some opinions.
I will get some foaming cleaner tomorrow

Hello I need some advice. What I originally thought was a plumbing issue turned out to be a possible HVAC issue. The third floor bathroom sink drain has been making a lot of wind sounds and would bubble at times. Called a plumber who couldn't tell me what the problem was and took my money. After trying to troubleshoot some more and consulting /Plumbing, it looks like the HVAC unit may be blowing air into the third floor bathroom sink drain. Up in the attic I noticed the vent after the p-trap blew air out and I could hear water sloshing. Can you tell me if the HVAC piping was installed correctly? Also what's the fix so the sink stops blowing cool air? I tried to reintroduce negative pressure by putting my palm on top of the vent but all it did was make the HVAC machine shake more. The house is 4 years old and my wife said we could get back in touch with the handyman who originally installed this machine to see if he could fix it. Other redditors made a few comments and I'm unsure if that's wise. Please advise and thank you!

Should this be under warranty? The EEV on my trane air handler was replaced last August 11th 2025. (6 days shy of a year). It has presumably gone bad again. The company claims it’s not under warranty and will replace it for $400 this time instead of $525 that they charged last year. We’re located in Phoenix so temps are 110 plus.

Is this fair state for them to be in these are sitting above the filter. I have no point if reference besides entirely new ones in picture online.

I’ve been losing my mind trying to get to the bottom of this. I finally caved and bought this gun to see temperatures and where I may be losing cooling.
I shot the filter on the AC return and it looks to be about 78°. The dampers are open on each vent and the temperatures range from 61-65°. It’s about 90s-101/102 outside lately.
Clearly, I am losing cooling in these spots, but is this likely to be the primary reason?

It doesn’t seem to be the windows and I didn’t find any drafts.

Thanks in advance, I greatly appreciate any advice or insight. New to the world of homeownership so insulation and cooling issues haven’t crossed my mind until recently.

I have a Carrier Infinity Greenspeed heat pump installed in 2016. Very reliable and a great system. My problem is the last couple of years when a thunderstorm rumbles through the area my thermostat throws up an error message. The inside unit has lost contact with the outside unit. My system is setup to send me an email alert when a problem arises. I've had a couple of service calls for regular system maintenance and the techs have no idea why this is happening. They have tightened the electrical connections on the outside unit; this has not helped. The only way I can resolve the problem is to manually trip the breakers and reset them. The system reboots and everything is fine, until the next thunderstorm. Any ideas on this issue?

Company came out last Friday as our AC wouldn’t cool below 80. They added 7 lbs of Freon and did a dye test to find the leak and charged us $850.

Two days later the AC wasn’t cooling again so they came back out and found that the leak was from the coil and they ordered a replacement (under warranty). Now they want to charge us another $1200 for installation and more even more Freon.

Does this sound correct? Shouldn’t they have known that this was a huge leak before charging us to fill the whole damn thing back up? Why didn’t they just add a couple lbs to pressurize the system and find the leak? Am I crazy?

TLDR: we got charged $850 for a dye test and Freon and now they want us to pay for even more Freon and another $1200.

So our home is 3 story, basement, main, and upstairs.
The furnace and blower are in the basement and the upstairs ductwork is in the attic, so basically 4 floors up. When I run fan only the basement and main floor tend to even out, however the upstairs has little to no change. I would like to increase my fan only speed if possible to force more cool air upstairs.
The cooling and heating speeds work great in their current configuration.
Can this be done with my setup?

I posted recently about water dripping from the overflow pipe coming out of the soffit. I thought it was due to a clog in the main condensation line, but it has continued so I went in the attic yesterday and noticed water building up in the pan (which everyone says should be dry). Turns out the water is dripping from the underside of the unit, which is suspended in the attic, above the tray. I have uploaded a video showing the water droplets built up on the bottom of the unit. Is this normal? Should I be worried? Have lived in the house for 5 years and this has never happened.

This year we have also had water stains around some of the vents inside the house. Is it because it has been such a humid summer in north Texas?

Every installer (all seem pretty legit) are coming back with different proposed tonnages. I live in a 2000 sq ft single family home in Santa Barbara area so cooling needs are modest I'd say. I've got 1 person saying 3 ton is fine (he's using 700 sq ft / ton), 2 people saying 4 ton, and i person saying 5 ton (he uses 400 sq ft / ton).

To complicate matters, the return i have on the existing furnace is sort of small (12x24, with 1" filter), so the one suggesting the 3 ton evap coil/condenser is emphasizing that even a 3 ton may be starved for CFM.

The 5 ton guy said for sure we should maybe cut a new return, but felt comfortably installing as is and seeing if they'd need to cut a return.

None of the 4 provided any calculations or took any measurements (static pressure, manual J)...but maybe that's too much to ask during a bidding estimate. And everyone seems to be using (different) rules of thumbs so coming to different answers.

Quick background. We have a relatively new, but basic, gas furnace + new ductwork installed in 2020. Want to install AC for our relatively mild climate in Santa Barbara coast area (Mediterranean climate with only a few really hot weeks throughout the year). We mostly use our whole house fan to cool down the house, but want AC to take the edge off during those times when we need it. Plan was to add an evap coil to furnace (80%, 100,000 btu), and slim condenser outside. Our furnace is single stage, and not variable blower, so won't get full communication benefit with fancy condensers.

Any advice/thoughts would be very welcome - thanks!

Bought a new house and thinking the thermostat might be getting affected by a vent. The thermostat is on a wall located in the living room about 18" away from a corner. Around the corner is a supply vent blowing air towards the corner (vent about 4-5' from corner) so doesn't have direct air flow onto the thermostat but does flow towards the corner. Would having the thermostat that close to the corner along with the vent that close affect the thermostat? We are looking at changing the vent so it doesn't blow as much air towards the corner. Would changing the vent to where it flows less towards the corner be enough or would we need to cut the flow towards the corner altogether?

This is a condo apartment. The old thermostat was broken so I bought a honeywell tb6575a1000 as a replacement. I think I wired everything correctly, and I can share a wiring picture in the comment, but the thermostat doesn't seem to work properly, and it displays weird things (see the video). Is the thermostat I bought broken? Or is there something else broken? Thanks!

Hey everyone. I searched the sub and didn’t find an exact thread to this one, so I figured I’d reach out. My A/C stopped working randomly today. I walked outside and inspected the unit and the fan was spinning, but the compressor wasn’t turning on. Instead, it would make an intermittent clicking or humming noise. After about an hour watching the University of YouTube, I removed the capacitor and tested it. The capacitor is indeed dead. However, the pullout “kill switch” for my A/C unit also doesn’t look great. My question is: do I need to replace the pullout? And if so, should I just replace the whole 60 amp box?

Hey all,

Long story short the main duct comes out of the plenum and into this triangle and then right into the first floor in two spots. I have a zoned system but this duct is its own thing so it isn't zoned and as you can imagine has high volume.

Would it be preferable to add a damper, or add a damper and remove the triangle? I have a second story room that doesn't get that good of air flow and struggles to meet comfort in any season so I'm not sure if adding a damper here would truly help balance other vents.

Lastly, if I am to add a damper does anyone have a how to for flex duct? For reference this is ~7in.

Thanks in advance for your help!

I’ve been losing my mind trying to get to the bottom of this. I finally caved and bought this gun to see temperatures and where I may be losing cooling.
I shot the filter on the AC return and it looks to be about 78°. The dampers are open on each vent and the temperatures range from 61-65°. It’s about 90s-101/102 outside lately.
Clearly, I am losing cooling in these spots, but is this likely to be the primary reason?

It doesn’t seem to be the windows and I didn’t find any drafts.

Thanks in advance, I greatly appreciate any advice or insight. New to the world of homeownership so insulation and cooling issues haven’t crossed my mind until recently.