Central Air?

Question

I have a 4 year old ac unit and just had the motor replaced. the thermostat is set for 75 but during the day the temperature in the house just goes up. usually to 83. i have had it checked and was told that everything is fine and its just too hot for the ac to get to that temp. should I call someone else and spend even more money? i would like to have and idea what could be wrong when I do call someone else. i don't want to keep spending money on this and the problem to continue.

Answer 1

Some of the suggestion given are just fine and need to be checked during the annual clean and check you should be doing on your system. However, what you haven't said is how hot it is outside. If you are in one of those areas of the country that is experiencing a hotter than average summer, your air conditioner may, in fact, be doing all it can. A common misconception a lot of people have is that no matter how hot it is, your A/c should always be able to bring your house down to the desired temp. Sorry, but that just isn't so.

So, the short of it is, if the system hasn't had an annual clean and check inspection, get one. If they don't find anything wrong with the system and the temps outside are hitting the mid to high 90s then chances are, the system is doing all it can.

Answer 2

Diamond- I am a new home owner and have a system 19 years old and am having the same problem. I have spent all day researching and I'll share some of the tips I've found- maybe they'll help. Some of the things that the service guy should have checked are: clean evaporator coils? freon level? is the blower wheel clean? and your duct work - check to see if you have any breaks in your duct work (you may be cooling your attic) also if your duct work is insulated. I'd call the company back and get details on what makes them think everything is fine. My system will not cool the house past 82-84 during the hottest part of the day, but does fine at night. I keep my thermostat at 77 at night. I have been told the same- everything with the system is fine it just can't keep up with the heat. This makes no sense to me since the size of my house hasn't changed and the summers have always been hot, I can not accept the fact that this air conditioner has always keep the house at 82-84 in summer and nobody in 19 years has complaind. If anyone has any helpful tips please let me know....or if you can suggest parts to replace that will make it run more efficent..7 months left on my home warranty!

Answer 3

Same boat here. We bought our first house last summer and had a problem with the temps right away. It was reaching mid 90s and the inside temp was reaching 80-82. We were told something about as long as the temps were within 20% of the outside temp the a/c was fine. We have cathedral ceilings in the great room and master bedroom and bathroom, we also have a basement. Our basement has a family room, play room, and 2 bedrooms and has no problems of course, keeping comfortable temperatures. I crawled around and discovered a lot of things that I think could have been done differently. First, our upstairs air handler, all the supply ducts, and return ducts are run in the attic, right up under the roof deck - literally, some attached and touching the highest point of our roof. We do have soffit (sp?) and ridge vents, but they do not keep our attic cool, to say the least. When the temp outside was 82, it was registering 122 degrees up there, and from what I can tell, the ductwork has just a little insulation - I guess goody for us, right? Being the fixer I am, I bought some Insulad paint addative and painted the entire roof deck that ran over our whole upstairs. We're lucky enough I guess to have enough crawl space we can enter the attic through the garage, go over the kitchen, up over the cathedral ceiling in the great room (where our ductwork runs) and over to the other rooms and down through an attic access, which I discovered was not insulated at all. After doing that, I rechecked the temps and at 88 degrees outside, the attic was only 117...so with 6 degrees warmer it was 5 degrees cooler; I considered that part a success. Then, I went to Lowes and bought a ton of insulation. Our ceilings were insulated to R-30, but the knee walls with the living room high walls right on the other side was only an R-19. I sealed what leaks I could find, insulated the knee walls with an additional R-25(making the walls R-44) and then R-13 over the cathedral ceilings of the living room, master bed, and bath (making themR-43.) Then I wrapped the major supply duct with R-13, and wrapped down the register supply ducts with R-13, and some only R-6ish (1/2 of an R-13) since I had a hard time getting the whole R-13 around it. I did do the supply duct leading to the West and South facing room, which was always the hottest, with the full R-13. I wrapped what I could, making sure I got all of the ones that were over the highest, hottest part of the cathedral ceiling. I also added the Gila platinum window tint to all my upstairs windows. At any rate, I am now able to maintain 78 degrees and it has been 100-102 degrees for the last couple days here in NC; I even caught my system turning off at 6:30 pm with it still being 99 outside! I consider that a success and am willing to stop there. It's been a crazy couple weeks doing this myself, but I am able to be comfortable now.

I am writing this long winded reply because I am sick of reading how incompetant some builders are. They go for the cheap and do just enough to get by...I say that because any air ducts that are in the attic especially, should be insulated to at least the attic insulation level. There were so many electric and exhaust fan holes in my ceiling/floor of attic, it makes me sick thinking how they could just leave them and covered with the bare minimum insulation required to get their house passed. Unfortunately, my builders can be added to the sell it and leave them list....they were MIA 7 months after closing and left a big hole in one of my ceilings after a pipe leak. I won't go on and on anymore, but this is my story of how I am able to keep my house at 78 in 100 degree weather instead of shooting up to the mid 80s anymore. Oh, I was also told by a different a/c company, that the unit is doing what it is supposed to be doing, but they would have put in a larger unit and ran the ductwork differently (gee you think??) good luck!

Answer 4

I think you need to call a more qualified person. We have lived in Florida, North Carolina and Maryland...all hot and have never had a problem with the central AC keeping up with the outside temps. Could it be that you have only a single unit where you should have had a two zone unit? We had neighbors with only a single zone that could never keep their house cool.

Answer 5

whats adding the heat to the house? hot attic with no/not enough venting? Attic temps are a big problem in older houses. attic should be no more that 120f. did thay also check the pressures (freon) and the temps of the ac vents/returns? unit size to the house.. does it run all the time? bad t-stat?