Something wrong with window unit A/C


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Old 08-18-18, 05:53 PM
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Something wrong with window unit A/C

I have a Friedrich window unit, model SM16A30. It cools a non-insulated game room (converted garage) that is 625 sq ft and it does a great job. Even in hot summer in the upper 90s it can cool the room to 68 degrees!

I am not happy with a worker that decided on his own to take the grill off the front and "service" it. I was absent from the room and when I returned I saw him fiddling with it. I bought this house and this unit has worked flawlessly for 44 years, a 1974 model. When I turned it on the next day, it ran great for hours and cooled the room but I had to leave the house for two hours and when I opened the door, yuck, horrible smell and the room was warmer than it should be. It smelled "electrical" to me. It didn't sound right, it was kind of buzzing. I don't recall if it was blowing. I immediately turned it off. I remember thinking, aw heck, it must've locked up, thinking it was the electric motor or compressor failure.

I asked the worker what he did to it. He said he took off the grill and the filter that covers the front was falling apart. I guess it is a carbon filter or styrofoam? He had been cleaning the baseboards in the room and he sprayed some of the household cleaner on the filter and put it back in! I have no idea why he did that.

When I took off the grill today and looked at it, the "filter" material was gone, all that is left is a plastic frame that I guess supported the filter material. If you can even buy such a filter, it should have been replaced long ago. I dont' know what you call it... the corrugated aluminum-looking material that surrounds the front coils... I did not notice much at all of the filter material inside that corrugated metal. If there was a quite a bit of the filter material when he put it in there, it went somewhere.

I turned on the A/C to see if it would run at all and it did but I was afraid to run it very long. It seemed to be putting out cool air but the fan speed was not nearly as strong. I decided to shut it down.

I am not as mechanically-minded as some guys, sorry for the ignorance, but any idea what went wrong? Anything I can do short of calling an A/C repairman? Do you think this might be salvageable? What can I do? Can filters be bought for a 1974 model?
 
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Old 08-18-18, 05:57 PM
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You can buy foam filter material cheap and cut it to size.

It sounds like a capacitor may be failing. The fan motor may or may not use a capacitor and the compressor definitely will.

A weak capacitor can cause a motor to fail to start or run slowly.

Also, motor may need oiling.

Will have to take the unit apart to troubleshoot it - electrical knowledge required.

don't run it like this, can do more damage.
 
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Old 08-18-18, 06:23 PM
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It's 44 years old and your blaming him for the filter falling apart, Hmm.
 
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Old 08-19-18, 05:10 AM
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I was not happy with the worker for his habitual doing chores I did not ask him to do, the guy is a trainwreck. Half the time he doesn't show up, half the time he does crap I don't ask him to do, thinks he can fix anything, and he ends up tearing stuff up. He's energetic when he shows up but far too cocky with his supposed handyman skills! Not happy with him for not telling me the filter was shot and spraying household cleaner on the filter. It is ridiculous how hard it is to find decent help around this small town.

The unit was serviced end of last summer by a commercial a/c service; obviously, the a/c/ guy did not even look at the filter.
 
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Old 08-19-18, 06:06 AM
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While I understand your ...... disappointments with the young man, but when I read 44 years, I really had to stop, go back & look at that again. I put a 10,000 BTU in a shop when I built it in 2002 & when we sold the house (& shop) in 2017, I was so proud that the window AC which was 15 years old would still run & frost the windows. We usually keep one in a window in the master bedroom of our home. 10 years is about the limit in my experience.

If you found a pro AC guy to service your window AC unit, you're lucky. (Just my past experience), but I know a couple of pro AC guys & they wont take the time to even come look at them.... for regular pay. I am in no way saying you don't have an AC guy that will, I am just saying that most AC guys wont mess with them. Other than changing a filter, washing out etc, there is very little maintenance & they are pretty much not serviceable. The Freon system is sealed & cant be serviced on any window unit I know about. Again, I am not calling you out but if you know one, you're lucky.

In the end, Its possible that the handy man messed it up. While it was a perfectly good working unit & he shouldn't have messed with it without your permission, Its also pretty likely it was just time for it to go out. I think you have gotten more service out of that unit than most people would get out of 2 or 3 units. That doesn't excuse his "messing" with it & possibly damaging it, but chalk it up as another unsolved mystery, be thankful you got 44 years out of it, get another one & keep that guy away from your stuff.

Good luck
 
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Old 08-19-18, 09:29 AM
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Dixie2012, I can concur with most of your post. FWIW, the a/c guy I mentioned... it's possible that I got this wrong but I recall him coming to service my main a/c unit that serves the whole house and I recall asking him about the window unit and he 'serviced' it, whatever that is.

As for my disappointment in a 44 year old unit going out, that's just it. I've had three a/c guys tell me, oh my, you got a good one, they don't make 'em like that any more, the new ones won't last near as long. So, when the worker did what he did, I wasn't happy because the unit worked so well! This guy has done this on more than one occasion... 'servicing' something that I did not say anything about. I do not trust this young man because he is EXACTLY like his daddy, who has worked for me as well... they think they can fix ANYthing properly, but what they do is fix it the 'poor boy' way. That is ok on certain things, and admirable, but on other things, it's a mickey mouse fix and actually, not a good thing. I just found it ironic that the unit goes out the very next time I used it.

So, what I am trying to figure out is... just trash it or TRY to find out if it's fixable?

If a motor is shot or a capacitor or compressor is shot... can these parts even be bought for a unit that old?
 
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Old 08-19-18, 11:48 AM
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The filter on the front of a window A/C is ONLY there to keep the dust off the cold evaporator coil. It is not designed in the least to filter the room air. It's a very thin sponge type filter. From the age..... when he hit it with the chemical cleaner..... it dissolved it. My thought it is it was drawn into the cold coil. That would explain the reduced air flow.

In order to get the crap out of the coil..... you'd need to take the unit out of the window, remove the main cover and using compressed air.... blow from the back of the coil to the front to blow the crap out. Replacement filters are sold at all the home improvement stores. They may need to be cut to fit.
 
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Old 08-19-18, 05:03 PM
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If it is, indeed, the stuff sucked up into the coil, you don't think it's catastrophic failure since it smelled so bad and wasn't functioning normally? What is that putrid smell? Smelled like electrical failure but I don't know much.
 
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Old 08-19-18, 06:44 PM
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It may be catastrophic as the old filter may be actually glued/stuck in the coil. If the unit is still putting out cold air..... it should be ok. I don't know how easy it will be to clean the coil. It may take more than air to clean it. Possibly some foaming coil cleaner to dissolve the old filter.
 
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Old 08-20-18, 08:31 AM
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What's weird is when I look at the fins (after I vacuumed them), I don't see hardly anything blocking them. This is the coil right behind the front grill that blows into the room. I saw a youtube of a guy cleaning a window unit and my gosh, that thing was filthy, CAKED with dirt and crud all over the fins. So, hmmm... I'm wondering if my problem isn't something else.

Can anyone tell me what the putrid smell is from? If an electric motor burns up, doesn't it smell real bad?

Lastly, I even have the original paperwork and I cannot find the rating, and I even see what appears to be an aluminum or tin foil strip inside the front grill cover that has a bunch of numbers embossed on it. What am I looking for, this is hard to read. I see amps and watts and AHAM BTU HR and under COOL, it looks like it says 16.100 and right below that is looks like 16.000. Or maybe those are commas? Under BTU/WATT (EER), under COOL it says 8.5 and under that, 8.4

Is this 16,000 BTU?
 
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Old 08-20-18, 12:47 PM
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OK, took the window unit out and took it apart. The fins did not look very dirty to me but cleaned them with coil cleaner then water, cleaned the whole thing. Took a plate off the top and under that is two gizmos that are gray-green in color and I think these might be capacitors?. One is about 9 x 3.5 x 2 inches, much larger than the other one. The small one is about 2 x 2 x 1.25 inches. The small one "blew out" at the top rim and gunk is all over it and that is definitely what I smelled. Yuck smell lol.

A friend said he thought one of these serves the fan motor and one serves the condenser. I have no idea lol. He said maybe the small one that blew out serves the fan motor and it is supposed to boost the voltage but could not, since it blew out, and that is why it blew some cold air in but not much.

Can anyone tell me what this is that blew out and if I can buy one new or do you think I can buy one used somewhere?
 
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Old 08-20-18, 05:19 PM
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They could be capacitors. The value should be printed on the part.
There will be an AC voltage and a capacitance mfd. printed on it.
 
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Old 08-27-18, 04:29 AM
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A friend who does some a/c work gave me a used capacitor and I put it in and it worked. Unit is working as normal.
 
 

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