My central air conditioning unit has stopped working?

Question

My central air conditioning unit has stopped working. The furnace is blowing regular air. The fan is not turning. I have checked the circuit breaker and it's fine. I turned off power and turned it back on. I called Sears for service they said it would be $93 to send someone out!!! The AC and furnace is 2 years old and it has 1 year for labor and 5 years on parts. It is a Kenmore NAC018AKC3

Answer 1

Unless you feel very comfortable working around 230 volts, have Sears come out and inspect the unit. It is off for a reason, not just a fuse blown. The technician will determine why it is not working, and correct the fault. It will probably cost you a couple hundred when all is done, but you will be cool and confident the machine is operating properly. If the tech finds that a simple reset tripped, make him determine why and what can be done so that it doesn't happen again.

Answer 2

I have been in the HVAC service industry for over 11 years now and most times in the first part of summer about 80% of our service calls are capacitor related. If the indoor unit is running but the outside is not you have a real good chance that the dual capacitor is bad. Some things to look for is a hot smell on the outside unit, a buzz sound when it tries to come on. If you feel comfortable turn the power off to the outside unit, take off the panel to the electrical. The run capacitor will look like a round or oval canister with wires hooked to it. If the top is bubbled up the capacitor is bad. You may have a local supply house in the area that will sell to the public. Also look for any burnt wiring. A hard star kit is a capacitor that stays in the system only momentarily not all units have them, when they go bad a tar like substance will spill out of them. Good luck.
Also look in the phone book for a licensed contractor the tech from sears will most likely be some one they subcontract. Look for a company that does flat rate pricing and has a good reputation in your area.

Answer 3

First check the filter Second, have you been running it really low? It could be frozen. If so, turn it completely off for about half a day. Then turn it back on. Running it on really low temps for any amount of time can cause the unit to freeze. I once had an a/c company service my unit, left it down on 68 and it quit working. They came back out and gave me an estimate of almost 1000.00 to fix. When I saw the thermostat set so low, I turned the unit for the day (sucked since it was Labor Day in Phoenix). I turned the unit back on and it worked like new. Third, freon leak?

Answer 4

The $93 is the diagnostic fee. That's a pretty normal charge for that in a lot of areas, but without knowing your area it's impossible to say for sure if it's a fair charge. Unfortunately labor is the highest part of most repairs on ac units.

Answer 5

The contactor could be bad though on such a new system that is unlikely. It is also possible that the system has high/low pressure cut outs with a manual reset.

You can open the access cover on the condenser and see if there is a reset button for a cut out switch. Also check the fuses in the disconnect.

Answer 6

outdoor unit is off? breaker may be ok but the fuses inside the power diconnect at the unit may have blown. Without a volt or ohm meter you really have no choice but to have a tech come out and check.