***SORRY. Just realized I posted in the wrong forum. ***

OK so my thermostat has been set to 68 for hours now. But my house will not get down below 72. The air from the vents is pretty cool. Definitely not warm air. My fan in the outside unit is spinning. The unit outside isn't frozen or clogged with grass, etc. But still it won't get the temp down.

I checked my filter. I was pretty dirty, so I replaced it. But that was two hours ago. Still not seeing improvement.

I have a honeywell thermostat. It and the house are about 8 years old.

Any ideas or things I could try to diagnose the problem. It's about 11:00pm here and I'm about to go to bed in an hour or so. Should I turn the whole system off? Is it safe to let run if something is broke?

Really appreciate any help.

 

Welcome to the forums.

I moved you here to the A/C forums.

This doesn't sound like a thermostat problem.
Your outside condensor is two parts.... a fan and a compressor. You can see the fan running but the compressor is not visible. Usually you can tell by how loud the unit is whether the compressor is running.

One easy way to check is to go outside and check the larger, usually insulated, refrigerant line and see if it's cold. It should be very cold to the touch. If it's not then the compressor is not running.

Are you going to service this yourself ?
Once we find out if the compressor is running or not we can better advise you.

 

yeah sorry about that. I posted in the wrong forum.

Ok checked the outside compressor. The uninsulated line is cold, but not ICE COLD. The other insulated line has one spot where the insulation tore off and that spot has a bit of ice on it.

Also, should add that the air coming up from the compressor fan isn't warm air. Sort of medium.

I will try to service this myself if possible.

 

The smaller line will run warm. It's bringing the heat out of the house.

The larger insulated line is the one that needs to be ice cold. You should be able to better check right at the back of the unit.

If it's ice cold then you may have an airflow problem in the house.
Are you getting good airflow from the registers ?

Depending on where you live and the ambient temps and humidity..... you may have a frozen coil inside the house.

 

really appreciate the help.

So the fact that the air from the fan isn't warm isn't an issue?

Air flow is good, but I can't tell if it's less than before honestly. The filter was pretty dirty before I changed it, do you think there's a clog? Is there anything I can do to fix this myself?

What's weird is overall the house doesn't FEEL like 72 degrees. But again, I can't be sure. I don't have a thermometer to check for sure. But sitting on the couch now I feel air hitting me.

Also, should I shut the system off tonight? Is it causing any further damage?

 

The air coming from the outside fan should be pretty warm.

If that isn't fairly warm and the large refrigerant line is not fairly cold then it sounds like you are low on refrigerant.

Since it's not helping the house much it would probably be advisable to turn it off.

 

It's odd. The air from the fan is not warm at all, but the large insulated line is pretty ice cold/damp. And as I said, there's even a small bit of frost on one part without insulation. Does this still sound liek refrigerant?

Also, is it ok to leave it running tonight? Will is cause more damage to anything but my utility bill?

 

If it gets too low it should shut the compressor down. If you hear the compressor short cycling then you'll need to shut the system down until it's checked out.

The air handler extracts the heat inside the house and discharges it outside. If you don't feel a lot of hot air coming out of the condensor then it's not extracting much heat from inside.

 

It hasn't short cycled. It's just been running nonstop for hours and hours.

So just to be clear and so I can leave you alone finally... You would say if the air from the fan is not warm at all and the large insulated line is ice cold/damp, then it's probably refrigerant?

Thanks again.

 

Considering my filter was pretty dirty, do you think it's all from having a dirty Evaporator Coil?

I just went into my attic and my drip pan has water in it with a fairly steady drip falling into it. If that helps diagnose.

 

The filter is in the return line before the coil.
The filter's job is to keep the evaporator coil from getting dirty.

Your system is producing condensate so it is operating.... just not to it's maximum level.
I would set up an appointment to have the refrigerant level checked.