Whole House A/C stopped cooling Trane XE1000

An honest guy can work all day every day and have more customers than he can handle.
Absolutely; and can make a good living too. I have no issues paying handsome hourly rate and 200% markup over the parts and I consider that to be fair.
There are more HVAC guys getting screwed by customers than the other way around.
Now this I do take issue. How exactly customer is screwing HVAC guy? Am I the only one who does not understand this?
 
Any contrary opinion to hosing down the unit from the outside without removing any panels? It will do some cleaning of the coils but I don't want to have something to go wrong either and would prefer sleeping dogs lie!
Back to this:-
I have good temperature difference between first register and return duct. 50 vs 80. I think I should not bother hosing down the outside condensor.
 
Back to this:-
I have good temperature difference between first register and return duct. 50 vs 80. I think I should not bother hosing down the outside condensor.
What would it hurt? Spray some a/c coil foam cleaner on the fins, let it do it's job and hose it down.. what could it hurt? Then see your temp differences after you do that.. you might be surprised..
 
The reason I am asking this question is because I do not want to clean it from the inside of the condenser where it involves removing the fan. That reverse flushing would be the correct way to do this. Hosing it down from the outside instead could have potential of getting outside dirt deeper in to the fins of the coil.
 
Most capacitors are crap anymore. The old ones are made better. My VW's have a distributor with points and condenser. Even the new Bosch ones are bad. I usually buy old used ones at swap meets to get ones that last. Ac condensers are the same. New ones are not very long lasting. "Change is Good" ha ha.
 
What would it hurt? Spray some a/c coil foam cleaner on the fins, let it do it's job and hose it down.. what could it hurt? Then see your temp differences after you do that.. you might be surprised..
You have to be careful doing that. Some of those cleaners don’t play nice with some condenser coils.
 
The reason I am asking this question is because I do not want to clean it from the inside of the condenser where it involves removing the fan. That reverse flushing would be the correct way to do this. Hosing it down from the outside instead could have potential of getting outside dirt deeper in to the fins of the coil.
just from my home DIY experience. When I was getting my parent's house ready for sale I used an a/c foam cleaner on the condenser. It was a self dissolving foam and it was sprayed from the outside, the foam expands to go inside the fins. It didn't drive any dirt deeper it dissolved the dirt. I could finally see through the fins to the inside. Then hosed it down and the water went out the bottom of the compressor box. I never removed the fan at all. So again, speaking from my experience, it was a win-win! The a/c temps got much colder in the house, sure, the heat could get out now! A/C safe brand from HD is what I used. No problems since.. maybe other brands are junk but this one worked well!
 
You have to be careful doing that. Some of those cleaners don’t play nice with some condenser coils.
Since you mentioned bad things.. What brand of a/c condenser cleaner didn't play nice? A/C Safe brand I used never caused any issues.. But feel free to share what brands caused damage..
 
Thanks Researcher! I will pick up the A/C Safe foam cleaner from Home Depot and do it.
 
Thanks Researcher! I will pick up the A/C Safe foam cleaner from Home Depot and do it.
hey no problem.. here's a link to show you exactly what I bought..

also.. I never took the compressor box apart, didn't know (a/c was very old) if I'd be able to get it back together! Just sprayed between the vents and let it foam up.. oh and when you do spray, spray lightly, it comes out as a stream and is much easier to get it in between the fins before it foams up.. as it gets empty it foams more from the spray tip.

 
Since you mentioned bad things.. What brand of a/c condenser cleaner didn't play nice? A/C Safe brand I used never caused any issues.. But feel free to share what brands caused damage..
It’s not a particular brand that’s the issue, but I have a micro channel unit so I have to make sure I get cleaners that are micro channel safe or else they’ll eat at the aluminum.
 
Aren't all coil fins aluminum? Any coil cleaner should be (will be?) safe to use on aluminum.
 
It’s not a particular brand that’s the issue, but I have a micro channel unit so I have to make sure I get cleaners that are micro channel safe or else they’ll eat at the aluminum.

As easily as they bend they sure do seem to all be aluminum.

Aren't all coil fins aluminum? Any coil cleaner should be (will be?) safe to use on aluminum.
Yes most of your newer a/c coils are micro channel.. Think since 2000, that was the age of the one I cleaned a couple years ago..And yes they are aluminum (good heat sink). Micro channel is just that, micro. They are the really small, thin-width serpentine fins.

Did some research and found some of the a/c coil cleaners are acidic.. The alkaline cleaners are safe for micro channel fins. The foam cleaner that I used is alkaline all it has in it are propellants and meta-silicate. Anyone is free to look up the MSDS/SDS but the a/c safe that I used is safe (no pun intended) that's why I never saw anything bad happen!
 
Did some research and found some of the a/c coil cleaners are acidic.. The alkaline cleaners are safe for micro channel fins. The foam cleaner that I used is alkaline all it has in it are propellants and meta-silicate. Anyone is free to look up the MSDS/SDS but the a/c safe that I used is safe (no pun intended) that's why I never saw anything bad happen!

One of the a/c coil cleaners I looked at contained nothing but water and 2-Butoxyethanol (aka butyl cellosolve). Basically it's glass cleaner at 3 times the price.

Glass cleaner is safe to use on aluminum. It'd probably work just as well to clean a/c coils. It's even available in a spray can that foams.
 
A/C piping is counter intuitive in the sense cold pipe is the exhaust pipe from the house and hot pipe is input to the house! Also the pipe which is under high pressure is thinner than the pipe which has low pressure.

Yes, I am yanking your collective chain but I am NOT wrong!

I think one could extract more efficiency from the system if the return pipe's coldness were to be "given" to the A-coil instead of "escaping" back to the compressor. But most likely refrigerant thermal characteristics does not allow that.
 
I am here in DFW and the Central A/C is broke!

Question to the guys in this area:- Are the house compressors designed to run 24x7 or they need to be cycled? I mean if the outside temperature goes from minimum of 92 to 109, in theory the compressor will have to run constantly (if it was working to begin with!).
 
A/C piping is counter intuitive in the sense cold pipe is the exhaust pipe from the house and hot pipe is input to the house!

Unless it's a mini-split. Then, the expansion valve is inside the outdoor unit, and the cold pipe is the input to the house (and the less-cold pipe is the return back to the outdoor unit).

I think they do it this way because the field-installed flare fittings are all on what is considered the low side, and under lower pressure. But it does mean that BOTH lines on a mini-split need to be insulated.
 
I just replaced one of those at our house and another at my sons house. That is alway the first thing to try when there is a problem with a compressor not starting.
 
Back
Top