Weird Window AC unit question

[The_Jeff]

Originally Posted By: antiqueshell


My wild guess is that somebody is pinching the capillary tubes partially shut. And from what I can see you COULD get a long reach needle nose pliers in there and do some damage without it being easy to discover UNLESS you remove the casing.


Would someone do this so you'd throw the AC in the dumpster and they could take it for scrap?

What story do you live on? Can they get at it?

 

[doitmyself]

Originally Posted By: Jarlaxle
Originally Posted By: antiqueshell
I thought of that but it is unlikely because the other unit is fed by the same breaker box and it has functioned perfectly for the four plus years I have been at this complex.


Can you swap them back and forth? If so, that can tell you if it';s the location or the unit.


This is my guess. The individual circuit that this unit is on is somehow faulty (breaker/hot/neutral/ground/receptical?). The other good working unit might be on a different breaker/circuit.

Swap the bad unit onto another circuit to eliminate or diagnose this possibility. Or, get a multi-meter.

 

[antiqueshell]

Originally Posted By: eljefino
Originally Posted By: antiqueshell


My wild guess is that somebody is pinching the capillary tubes partially shut. And from what I can see you COULD get a long reach needle nose pliers in there and do some damage without it being easy to discover UNLESS you remove the casing.


Would someone do this so you'd throw the AC in the dumpster and they could take it for scrap?

What story do you live on? Can they get at it?



I'm in a single story unit so you can easily reach the outside of the unit.

I never thought about the scrap value, although I suppose that would be possible.I thought that it was too small to be of much value compared to say a central unit.

I wouldn't doubt if there is drug activity nearby but it isn't very obvious .

What's surprising is that someone would be so brazen to attempt this at the first opportunity when I am gone, seems a little obvious and surely makes me suspicious. Now I have to say I'm involved in security work, so I am paid to be suspicious. I wonder why they wouldn't damage the other unit that is actually more hidden than this one? LOL

 

[aquariuscsm]

Remove and clean the filters really good. My old rental house's window units would blow only cool air when the filters would get dirty. I'd remove them and wash them with soap and water,let them dry and replace,and they'd be back to blowing ice cold again.

 

[JHZR2]

I still come back to user error. What temperature or coldness setting do you have it on? There is a difference between the first few days when you ran it and days into the future, because stuff will no longer be heat-soaked. Stuff can radiate for a very long time, because the heat transfer rate isnt that great. Finally suck out a lot of the heat from everything that was radiating, have a closed space, nobody in it (a person gives off plenty of watts of heat themselves), and if the AC is set too aggressively and the space too damp, sounds like recipe for disaster.

 

[GreeCguy]

The key thing to remember if someone has tampered with it is there will be evidence, paint damage, bent fins, crushed pipes etc. If you're not seeing any of that, I seriously doubt someone is tampering with the unit.

I would swap the units back and forth first before I invested the time and money in a security camera.

 

[antiqueshell]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
I still come back to user error. What temperature or coldness setting do you have it on? There is a difference between the first few days when you ran it and days into the future, because stuff will no longer be heat-soaked. Stuff can radiate for a very long time, because the heat transfer rate isnt that great. Finally suck out a lot of the heat from everything that was radiating, have a closed space, nobody in it (a person gives off plenty of watts of heat themselves), and if the AC is set too aggressively and the space too damp, sounds like recipe for disaster.



I had a spare unit from my parents home in the window for the past several weeks until I bought my own. That one worked fine and was also 5000 btu, I always set the temp to 77F and max fan.

the new unit I bought was performing fine just like my parents unit until I came home on Sunday morning. Then I noticed the symptoms.

I'm single and am pretty constant in how I use my living areas. No big changes from one day to the next, and like I said the ambient temps were always steady for the past week at least.

The apt was never left to heat up as I always had a working unit in the window.

 

[antiqueshell]

Just a little more information.

I just came home from work and the unit is set to 77. Humidity is about 45% and ambient room temp was 75. I turned the AC down to 74 to activate the compressor, I pulled back the filter to get a better look at the coils, and I noticed that as soon as I turned it on frost was forming on the copper tube that must come from the compressor (at the bottom of the condenser), and the very bottom set of coils where they come out of the condenser unit. No cold air came out of the vents for approximately one minute or so, then cold air started to flow and slowly the frost disappeared.

I put my fingers on each set of coils on the condenser and most were cold but the top ones seemed only cool not ice cold.

Any insight?

 

[antiqueshell]

Update:

I have installed some surveillance cams pointed in the direction of the AC units.

Also checked the voltage at the outlet this unit was plugged into and it appears to be fine with several other small appliances are all on. Voltage is hovering around 115-120.

I pulled the unit into the house so I could look more closely at it.

One interesting thing I noticed is that there are a pair of capillary tubes that are located near the compressor, they are coiled and each have several winds of tubing on them...now I noticed that there appears to be a odd crimp in one of the pair. Now it looks like a specific tool was used to do this. The crimp is not like you would see from a typical pair of pliers but there is a crimp with a square box imprinted in the center of the crimp, it doesn't look hacked but I looked at the other older AC and do not notice any crimped capillary tubing in it.

Do manufactures ever use crimping to partially restrict the tubes on purpose...or do I have genuine sabotage here.

 

[Schmoe]

Hmmmmm....been reading up on this. Seems if someone was trying to sabotage you, then there would be obviously easier ways to do it....like just cut the lines or something quick and easy.

 

[antiqueshell]

You would think so, however perhaps they want it to look like a malfunction and not sabotage. After all a malfunction is not a crime sabotage certainly IS a crime.

One thing I learned over the past several decades is just how odd folks can be, and you CANNOT assume that your reasoning is the same or ever close to that of someone else's.

 

[Schmoe]

YOu got any enemies out there???

 

[antiqueshell]

Originally Posted By: Schmoe
YOu got any enemies out there???


If you read my previous posts I mentioned that I haven't had any issues with anyone at all. I'm not a annoying person, make no noise, or anything like that so I don't bother the other tenants. Don't have any outstanding issues with others outside of the complex either.