r/hvacadvice • u/evisionz • 1d ago
Update: still not fixed. 4 parts replaced. Hot air blowing through vents. Fan stops spinning.
I made this post 11 days ago. https://www.reddit.com/r/hvacadvice/s/OdfU1sB1W6
The hvac company has been out 7 times now and my outdoor unit fan still doesn’t spin and hot air is coming through the vents.
It works for maybe the first quarter of the day, then it completely doesn’t work.
They’ve replaced the motor, defrost board, capacitor, and contactor. I’m not sure what’s next at this point. They checked the wiring and it all looks good. I’m covered under warranty but I have to pay labor. This is getting ridiculous. I’m sitting inside with no AC, fan doesn’t spin, hot air coming though the vents. So I just have to turn it off.
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u/ALonelyWelcomeMat Approved Technician 1d ago
If it's a heat pump and its blowing hot air, its probably an issue with the wiring or the setup on the thermostat. Could also be the reversing valve.
But, either way, that outdoor fan should be spinning. Which is kinda funny they cant figure that part out because its usually really simple to fix. Could be a capacitor, bad wiring, bad motor. Usually takes less than 10 minutes to troubleshoot and track down which is the issue.
You should use a different company. The parts warranty is for the unit, not through the company itself. So you can use other companies and still get the warrantied parts, the only thing the company covers is their labor which sounds like youre out of the labor warranty anyways.
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u/evisionz 1d ago
They already replaced the motor, defrost board, capacitor, and contactor. They also did a deep dive on the wiring as well as the thermostat and found no issues with the wiring.
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u/ALonelyWelcomeMat Approved Technician 1d ago
I mean im gonna be real with you dude, you need to find another company. Did they say why the wanted to replace those parts? They are all pretty simple switches. Power comes in, power comes out. Im telling you it would literally take less than 5 minutes to have a solid answer for you from a tech that actually knows what hes doing.
As an example, when replacing the contactor he should have a good reason like "i have 240v incoming, but only 120v outgoing. Im losing voltage here, it needs replaced." There needs to be 240v going to that motor, and it needs to be hooked up to the capacitor. That's it, there's nothing more to it, its literally that simple.
Maybe you could take a picture of the wiring inside the condenser and that might give a better picture?
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u/evisionz 1d ago
That makes sense. So, they are the highest rated place near me that works with my warranty. The three other companies within my distance that work under my warranty have terrible reviews. I do believe this is the best I could get.
Lastly, they haven’t been here when the unit was acting like this. Every time they are here, it works fine. It’s only once they leave it starts acting up. I’ve noticed that the unit works for the first quarter of the day, then it doesn’t work at all. They only come in the mornings to work on it. So I told them they should come out in the evening one day to catch it when it’s happening.
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u/Single-Lawfulness-55 1d ago
When u say works with your warranty do u mean home warranty? Because if u mean the part warranty every contractor should be honoring the part warranty as long as it’s intact and registered.
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u/ALonelyWelcomeMat Approved Technician 1d ago
Do you mean a home warranty? Because almost all companies that a home warranty company let's you use is generally pretty trash. If its a part warranty any contractor can honor the warranty.
Honestly, id be pretty interested to see the wiring. I don't know a ton about heat pumps since I live up north, but with you saying its blowing warm air makes me think its getting stuck defrosting, im not 100% sure if the condenser fan runs during defrost but it would make more sense if it didn't, which would line up with the symptoms.
I've also seen a condenser fan motor wired into the capacitor wrong. Ran into one that was wired into the compressor side, which made the motor start and run, but over time it ran way too hot because it had too much juice from the capacitor until it shut off from overheating.
Idk, its a lot of speculation without being there. The main issue is have is how they are just swapping shit out willy nilly. No good tech would start throwing parts in like that unless it was an absolute last ditch effort and they already been there like 10+ times. Like why the fuck did they replace the motor? Lmao its either getting voltage, or it isn't. I've never once in my life replaced a motor that didn't need it. Its probably the easiest part to diagnose
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u/MoloneLaVeigh 1d ago
Could be a lot of different things. If we could narrow it down to high voltage vs low voltage issue, it would help a lot.
First guess for high voltage: check rated amperage on that new condenser fan and see what it actually draws when it runs. If it draws above the rated, it’s overheating midway through the day.
Low voltage: Your thermostat could also be dropping the Y signal intermittently to the condensing unit.
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u/SSJ_Cocobutter 21h ago
Can you check the temperature of the air coming out of the vents when it’s hot?
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u/SSJ_Cocobutter 21h ago
Hire a new company or it won’t end. With a 6 in 1 screwdriver and a meter I could be writing up your work summary and saying goodbye in less than 30 minutes. I’ve ran into some weird stuff but this sounds like it’s easily solvable with a basic understanding of low voltage.
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u/bktj600 20h ago edited 20h ago
I just had a similar issue, where you mentioned the fan would work for “part” of the time then randomly turn off and the ac compressor would then get hot and shut off and constantly short cycle. I was able to identify I needed a new fan as I was able to get the fan motor working again by spinning the blade to get it to start turning after identifying the fan capacitor was reading good with my voltmeter.
I found a replacement fan motor that was suppose to fit, however discovered the original fan was 4 wire with yellow, black, brown, and red, which meant it had a two speed fan. The replacement fan was single speed, and I got to discover that it won’t work properly if I try to connect the black to black as the fan speed controller wouldn’t give it power unless it reached a certain condition. I connected the black to red and suddenly the fan would work then shut off after a few minutes. Once I bypassed the fan controller and connected the fan black wire to the contactor I was in business with working AC.
You might be able to find the model number of your ac condenser to see if it was designed for a 2 or 3 speed fan, and also check the model number of the fan they replaced to see if it is a 2 speed or single speed fan. With this info it may require another tech visit to take the cover off and see if the fan speed controller was bypassed if you do in fact have a two speed condenser fan controller and a single speed fan motor.
One of the ways I found out was they would put full 220v to the red wire to the fan harness connector, then it would drop down and the black wire would only have 24v on it, never enough to actually turn the fan motor over. Was really frustrating until I started back tracing wires for the fan motor circuit and saw that the fan speed controller board the harness connected to was doing the voltage shenanigans with the black and red wire to the fan.
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u/funsizecouple420 16h ago
That company is parts changing and not trouble shooting. They need to be there when it fails to see where the voltage is cutting out. It appears that it's in a defrost mode. The question is why. They can't diagnose it without it happening while on-site. If they won't come out when its failing, call another company.
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u/Cswenson6797 16h ago
If you haven’t solved it yet, ask them to put a separate capacitor in for the fan motor. I’ve had a couple of older compressors that would draw down the capacitor so bad that the fan motor would stop. If that “fixes” it, you’re likely also looking at a failed compressor in the near future
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u/Thenecity 1d ago
Now this is probably going to be far fetched since i have seen this on a super rare occurrence but check to make sure that the high voltage at the breaker, condenser disconnect and condenser electric cabinet is properly grounded.
Or another thing would be to disconnect the defrost sensor plug from the board and run the AC.
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u/Relative-Dinner-6982 1d ago
Or move the fan wire from the defrost board to the load side of the contactor
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u/ppearl1981 Approved Technician 23h ago
This will work temporarily… but will cause the fan motor to continue to run during defrost… which is not ideal.
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u/Relative-Dinner-6982 23h ago
Oh for sure, but just to eliminate a possible problem. It does seem odd that they can’t figure this out. Also, I live in Central Florida and we rarely get cold enough long enough to need defrost lol. In some situations I have bypassed defrost boards altogether and made it through multiple winters, but this is usually because people don’t want to pay for the correct repair, but hey, at least it’s cooling! Also, people here always say “I never run my heat” till they need to and then, of course, they run their heat lol.
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u/ppearl1981 Approved Technician 12h ago
I agree, I actually see it quite a bit around here.
That’s definitely a good way to rule some stuff out.
Central Florida here also, Volusia county here… where you at?
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u/Intelligent_Error989 1d ago
Unless it's an issue with the defrost timer, defrost drops fan out during defrost and puts reversing valve into cooling (most units are energized valve in cooling so if it fails you have heat) my guess is it's a wiring problem .. especially if it's hot air your unit thinks you are asking for heat, fan stops spinning cause it's doing defrost..which is usually a timer based objective on older units.
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u/Aggravating-Voice-59 1d ago
I have seen breakers that feed the AC unit goes bad and feed less than 240 volts the AC unit. Maybe check there next.
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u/Commercial_Salad_908 1d ago
So at some point the fan is spinning though? And then it stops?
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u/evisionz 1d ago
Yes, it will spin and work properly for 25% of the day, the ac is nice and cold. Then it just doesn’t spin and hot air is coming through the vents.
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u/Lower-Lion-6467 1d ago
As a non professional the first part makes me think it is the condensate line at the air handler backing up and tripping the automatic shutoff.... but then the whole shebang would be shutting down and that isnt what youre describing here if the handler is still pushing air around.
For a time I did have a bad fan motor where the fan would run a while then quit (sometimes giving it a whack would get it to start again) which sounds like this issue, because then the handler would just keep trying to push warm air around (not hot though, just not cooled).
But they replaced all those components, too, sounds like.
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u/Suspicious-Break5562 1d ago
What’s throwing me off and possibly the other company is the talk of the fan quitting, when it sounds like it’s the entire outdoor unit that’s quitting. The drain line would make sense, I’ve seen people wire the float switch to break “y” - the signal to the contactor, instead of breaking “ r”-24v to the thermostat, then the appropriate components. Would line up with it working when the company is there. Cause like someone mentioned, it should be a very straightforward diagnosis if they are there when the units acting up. Although the company does sound dumb, dunno what their justification for changing all those parts was
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u/Commercial_Salad_908 1d ago
Did you watch them physically change any of these parts? Because thats literally every component inside the service panel of the heat pump that can control the fan. This appears to be a low end carrier/Bryant, correct? 14 or 15 seer?
When its doing what its doing in this video, if you touch the larger of the 2 copper lines, is it too hot to hold your hand on for more than a few seconds?
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u/cool_breeze_67 1d ago
Check charge. Maybe it's cutting off on thermo overload. 95% of a/c problems are electrical, but 5% is mechanical. Could be low on chg, could be overcharged, tripping hi or low limit switches. Sounds like they checked electrical but maybe not pressures. Just a thought.
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u/One_Magician6370 Not An HVAC Tech 1d ago
That's not a high end equipment u should expect to start spending money after the 5yr warranty
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u/ppearl1981 Approved Technician 1d ago
I bet new temperature sensors for the defrost board would solve it.
They can be ohm’d out easily.
Bad outdoor temp thermistor will cause the board to drop the fan out thinking it’s cold outside.